Errare Humanum Est
by Aizen
Summary: There are two types of things: the things you know and the things you don't. The world you live in and the people in your life, you don't know them, do you? Yaoi...ish
1. Default Chapter

_Errare__ Humanum Est_

AN:  
1. A.U. Sorta.  
2. Shounen Ai/Yaoi…ish?

Kairi really lives up to her name, "_Separation_" (in whisper-y commercial voice)… by Calvin Klein. She has that dime-a-dozen female personality of "oh, I shall wait for you," "I am so determined though I am so weak!" etc. She's kinda just there, like a log you have to find. Well, not _just_ there, I mean, she's important to the story and all, but she didn't really leave a mark on me except as girl between the guys, which is a whole other thing by itself because I have too much time on my hands.

Anyway, Riku x Sora is one of the top ranking things in my _Great Big Book of Things Great_. See how it starts and ends with the word "great"?

Regarding the story, Riku's twenty-ish, of course making the other two a year younger than that vague number. Also for the sake of this story, let's say that Destiny Island is a lot bigger and has a lot more people. I imagine O'ahu because da kine.

Spelling and/or grammar errors due to my inattention and/or laziness. The rest of the story, though, is all my fault.

* * *

-1-

_"You can't realize who you are. That's why you're unhappy,"_ he says.

Try to be mysterious, why doesn't he?

Saying that it "means what it means" is cheating because things around here aren't that simple. Not that I'm saying things can't be, because that's how everything starts. Simply. Stuff just doesn't always stay that way. Things add up and evolve, following you into your sleep and turning into your dream.

I know you're waiting for me to ask, so here it is: "Is this a dream?"

Well… I dunno.

Kairi's obviously having problems of her own right now so I won't bother asking her about it. This leaves me with no one else but myself to ask, and that's when you know it's no good. I gave up trying to find all the answers… but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be happy knowing them. Even if the knowledge has only a few seconds to settle in my brain…

…so, getting to the point.

I've been thinking forever about things (technically, ever since I was a baby, but what kind of person remembers that far back? Not me.) You know those hackneyed questions of the meaning of life, happiness, what sorts of things happen beyond the horizon, et cetera. Of course you know them. We all do. You aren't gonna believe it but I used to preoccupy myself with that kind of stuff. Yup, ever since I was a wee lad. I ooze undiluted originality like that.

You see, I hate being naked (the emotional kind, not the freaky kind you perv, you). I tried to cover up my vulnerable self with those sorts of lame questions. Those mostly warded people off. I "hurt" their "feelings" or they got bored or annoyed with me. Mostly annoyed. Perhaps weirded out.

That left no one to hurt me. And no one to help me.

The stupid thing is… some of the questions I asked as a distraction actually got me thinking. Some "answers" magically reasoned themselves into existence and left a (figuratively) rampant itchiness I couldn't scratch. Sure, I asked "_why_" to cover myself up, but at the same time… these answers had to mean _something_.

As to how any of that relates to my recent life story, well, everything got so gnarled up so quickly that my questions didn't even have starting points anymore. What truths did I try to hide from and which lies did I want to expose? What was I really searching for? I couldn't figure out what I wanted to know or what I already knew but didn't know I knew. It's confusing but not.

So, what's my problem exactly? Do I want what I want or don't I? Either way, who cares. As of a few days ago, the "who, what, where, why, whatever" of everything lost their value to me. Questions are made for answers, not for more questions. Turns out that I suck at my own game. Thus I am here resigning myself to the _un_questioning acceptance that humans call "fate." Just kidding! I mean, I'm human too. Ha ha. But really, I give up. Take note that deliberately giving up isn't my style.

"Why me?" I should wonder. Well, why anything? Was it because I asked too many questions? Did I? Question? Question? Was this all of what life was? Building up to a cavernous grave of idiocy, its gaping mouth waiting for me to step in. Instead of dirt there're question marks. Maybe I'll die before I open my eyes to this world. Maybe I was stillborn to destiny, so I guess that in some way a grave can be like a womb.

Wait a minute. A "_womb grave_"? Man… this is what I've become. I am whining to myself again. I am making stupid metaphors no one'll care about or understand. Cry me a friggin' river.

All right, then, enough babble. You'd think that with as little time that I have I'd stop babbling some time soon. Can't help it. Now I'm babbling about babbling. I'll stop right… now.

Ok. Back to reality.

In the background, there's a metallic squealing. It's getting louder, gnawing a hole through my skull, becoming louder than the thoughts in my head and louder than the sound of me swallowing my own spit. And it's dark, the kind of dark where you don't know whether your eyes are open or not. Either way it doesn't change the fact that we're screwed. Everyone knows that darkness inevitably leads to dooooom and I whole-heartedly confess that right now this impending doom is riding my nerves.

Well, since I can't bear to think about what's going on around us, or what's gonna happen, and since I'm stuck here with this "fate", think I'll delve back into the semi-safe recesses of my mind again. I'll distract myself by telling me my own story again.

Ready, Me?

All right.

The situation that landed us here started ("started" meaning when I got involved, not when the situation actually began. I got caught up in the middle of this thing) when I went to buy things for Kairi.

Cue flashback.

Kairi'd gotten sick. I don't remember how I knew. Word of mouth probably or me finally noticing the lack of her presence. With me being the extremely nice person that I am (50 percent of that statement is true. I _am_ a person), I went to the market to buy her some flowers. I'd just gotten off from work, meaning I at least looked decent. I had to pass the market anyway and her home was along the way to mine. Score.

"Z_innias"_, the sign said. So it was zinnias that I bought. It made the florist a little flustered when I gave her the money and asked for the change in ones. Perhaps it was because I'd given her a large denomination bill. Dunno why I wasted time doing that, watching her go to different venders to trade for singles. But remember that the customer is always right.

Me? Stalling? Never. I'd never do such a thing. Why would I be nervous about seeing Kairi?

Before leaving with a snoot-full of pollen and a swollen pocket of singles, there was some huge commotion. What'd caused it ran smack into me. And get this, this doesn't happen in real life but… I saw his face. Guess _what_ that face was? It was familiar.

For the three seconds I gawked, disbelief had enough time to thoroughly massage, infiltrate, and saturate my brain. It hurt a little inside because there was no sign of him recognizing me back. They were just eyes—and they were looking at me yet still not knowing who I, The Great Riku, was!

Our staring contest was interrupted when a lady screamed. The familiar stranger took off fast, cutting through the crowd like it was nothing. Other screams were in reaction to the first one and the crowd boiled into a small-time frenzy. People were pushing me out of the way and I shoved them back. Just because.

Then some other person pointed at me and yelled, "Him, too! There's blood on his collar!"

I followed the accusing finger to myself and I'll be damned, I _did _have blood on my collar. On my white, perfectly ironed collar. The interloper had unmistakably smeared me with the stuff when trying to plow me over.

What was he doing with blood on him?

Before anyone could heed the words of the crazy person, I tucked in my collar and went on as if nothing happened. Continued being pushed out of the way and continued shoving back for no reason… but that composure didn't last too long. I don't know what it was, maybe the stuffy air or the motion of a gazillion bodies in that heat or the color of blood stuck in my mind's eye, but something got to me. Something inside me began to crack but not quite crumble.

I hauled ass outta there quick, smashed flowers and all.

Leaving that scene behind, I was supposed to be on my way to Kairi's. Remember? That's what I'd planned but yeah right. Auto-pilot took me home, to the shore in back. I pulled out a year-old, weatherworn cross I'd made and stuck deep into the sand (which was silly because I don't believe in anything and I'm not stylishly atheist).

It was symbolic, yeah, that's it, of resurrection and lowliest defeat. Or maybe just cliché. Undiluted originality, like I said.

Disregarding whatever else my subconscious tried to make it into, that cross was a sober reminder of the day when Sora went missing. Those two slabs of wood were something I saw every day… they were real so it made the fact they represented real. Kinda like stopping denial before it starts. I'm sure it'd make me mad to know I was living with the lie of false hope. The living part is fine but the _knowing_ it's fake is… no.

What, wasn't my pain "tangible" enough for you? Isn't it still!

But after what happened at the market I could throw that thing away. I chucked it far into the ocean and watched it begin its journey to wherever. It felt great for a little bit but the funny thing about time is that it can breed doubt. It's not a flat world, that cross can't fall over the edge and disappear, I mean… even if my hopes had risen, I couldn't ignore the past year of my life and make it disappear. I couldn't erase the fact that he'd been gone. Always something to remind me.

What if the stranger wasn't Sora like I was hoping to high heaven it was? That truth would—suck. As in _a lot_.

I eventually backtracked and made it to Kairi's front door, standing there awhile before actually doing anything. I lifted my arm, knocked using that knock-y thing, and waited. I noticed some small fluffy creatures running across the ground and watched their tails sway to and fro. Interesting. Squirrels. There wasn't much else to be distracted by so local wild life had to do. Wait, were squirrels really local or introduced to the—

"Riku?" Kairi's face suddenly appeared where the door used to be.

I swallowed and felt something that wasn't exactly pity and nothing like relief. Her face usually had a cute pinkish tinge but some pixels got turned off and her face was a milky yellow. How sick do you have to be to make that color? She was wearing a turtleneck, which was kinda weird since it's the middle of summer and freaking paradise around here. Did she still manage to have the chills?

I wanted to help but, you know. Me? Attempting to cure illness? No dice. The only constructive thing was to wish well. Or at least pretend to.

"Hi. Um, for you," I lifted my arm like a dumb robot to display my multi-colored, zinnia-ish show of friendship. I began to wonder if she'd notice how the plants were all creased and smashed. She didn't. Whew, there goes a load offa my back. Not.

"Thank you!" her voice went raspy with enthusiasm.

"Don't get too excited. They're just flowers."

"They may be but the thought means more. Come in! That's if you want to, if you're not afraid of catching anything from me."

I looked at my watch, but not conspicuously because you know how that'd make me look. I had about two hours before I had something to do, and that something was dusting lampshades. (What? Lampshades get dusty.) I could've lied and left but I didn't hate her. She was just—Kairi. Besides, I'd spent more than half my life knowing her and was yet to catch any breed of Kairi-Brand Kooties.

Looking past the sincerely fake smile on my face, her eyes fell and stayed a few seconds on my collar. I'd folded it in trying to hide red streaks but maybe she got some wrong ideas. Great, so it turned out that I tried to hide something only to make it more obvious. Like I cared. I didn't. That's why I did it in the first place.

Good going. Now I was reminded of the "Event of the Stain."

Kairi went on talking and I went on sitting on her couch and nodding my head. Some words I chose to hear sank in but I preferred my thoughts over the reality of that moment. I was still trying to figure what the heck happened earlier…

_"Riku?"_

I'd seen that he was still alive.

_"Riku."_

I'd felt him, his breath. It had to be real.

_"Hey."_

Sora's alive. There was an amount of time that passed after he went missing that I began to estimate his date of death.

"Riku!"

"Uh huh. That's really interesting, Kairi." (Claiming that something's interesting usually keeps you out of trouble.)

"You daydreaming?"

I seriously thought she was asking about my sighting.

"No."

Then I remembered that she couldn't read minds.

* * *

AN: I know you wanna know the meaning of zinnia flowers. C'mon. It's in the next chapter (unless you're smart/bored enough to look it up yourself… or if you already know... or don't read the next chapter. Boo-hoo).


	2. 2

AN: Zinnia, what doth thou meanest? They mean(eth) "thinking/ in memory of an absent friend." Pretty good, eh? Eh? Dunno if Riku would know that kinda thing but… 'eeeey.

This is still the flashback. The rest of the story is. Mostly.

* * *

-2-

Some people are sensitive. So what I wasn't listening to her. So what I brought up a subject totally irrelevant to hers. Better put me in a straight jacket 'cause that must mean I'm cra-_zay_.

"Sora's alive," I blurted out after Kairi snapped me out of my 'daydream.'

"What?" her eyes grew wide. I awaited her _He-is?-Omigosh!-I'm-so-happy!_ reaction with An Inevitable Fountain of Tears.

I continued to add to what I thought was her excitement, "He ran into me at the market." For some stupid reason I flipped out my blood-streaked collar. I'd been trying to hide it earlier, right? And it's not like she'd understand what I meant by it. Of all things, it should've made her more confused.

But she wasn't. Her expression became livid. Ever see an enraged pink cancel out a sickly yellow? It's like a swanky chameleon.

"Sora? He's missing!" she exclaimed, like I didn't know that fact. A heavyhearted look fell over her face as she seemed to remember to feel, oh, maybe _sad_.

Trying to pass that lil' outburst off as nothing, huh? Nice try.

"I saw him." I says to her, to her I says, "I _saw_ him."

"Thanks, Riku. Flowers brighten my day," she said through a professionally phony smile, ushering me off the couch and out the door. Before giving me the final heave-ho she said, "Be careful. A turtleneck doesn't look good on you," then muttered something like she needed rest and blah blah blah.

That wasn't suspicious _at all_. Nope.

Sure was in a hurry to get me outta the way, wasn't she? It could only mean she knew more than she was willing to show… and we all know that once an idea is planted in the fertile soil of my brain that it must grow. Photosynthesis. So to say, Kairi was the sun and made my suspicions grow. She was in on _something_.

And, yes, it was kinda embarrassing to be "kicked out" of Kairi's place. Who is _she _to kick _me _out? A Pauper doesn't kick the King out from his Kingdom. The indignity.

Well, whatever. Let her have that one victory. _One._Guess I might (keyword is "might") have deserved it because I might ("_might_") have touched a nerve. But you'd think that telling her Sora was alive would make her happy. _Excuse me_. Just thought it'd give her some hope that, though he'd been missing for a year, he wasn't dead.

But maybe…

Maybe I'd done that corny "tearing a healed wound open" thing. Why, oh, why do I do things like that? I say it's in the genes. I obviously don't grasp how to deal with sensitive things. But you can't blame me. Entirely. She didn't really say much to me during the past year (or ever), thus my lack of sensitivity and giving a damn. Sora's disappearance took out the thread that made Kairi and me friends (though we were coerced into being buddies-in-mourning). I'd be willing to listen to her, you know. I am just that caring.

Haha. What the hell was I doing there anyway… giving her flowers… _pshaw_… but I knew he woulda appreciated it if I were nice to her, hence my willingness for openness. _Openness_, not _bluntness_. If I simply asked if she was ok, you know… "_Why do you even have to ask? Don't you already KNOW?_" kind of business. Jeez. Next time I try to be nice remind me how it never goes right. If being the nice guy means finishing last then who needs to be nice.

It's not like Kairi was the only one hurt by his disappearance, either. Or was it that only _her_ pain mattered? Wait, what am I saying? Pain isn't some amount to be measured or compared. Pain hurts everyone and I don't think it's picky. It just does what it was created for. So, logically, it depends on the person how much s/he is affected by it.

Now don't I feel smart? Actually, it's more of a _special_ kind of stupid.

* * *

I was completely submersed in a dejected (not really) mood by the time I got home. Again. Changed into my good ol' shirt _without_ a collar and decided that, after a hard day's work, there's nothing like a trip to the ocean in the backyard. Again.

Alright, alright, working in a restaurant isn't the stressing-est job in the world but during summer break between semesters of school, working was the thing I put much effort into. Not only do I like money and food to eat, but being busy is paramount. That way the brain can't be bogged down by unnecessarily crappy thoughts. Gotta keep it movin', movin', movin'. I bet light doesn't get lonely because loneliness can't catch up to it… if only light were alive.

Somewhere inside I knew it all wore me down. I was definitely no kind of light. No amount of depthless friendships or crazily full schedules or OT could make me move fast enough long enough to keep loneliness away. Nothing could free the part of me that's pinned under the weight of dried-out memories… the part of me that's hanging onto the feeling of the past…

Hey, that'd make a good song.

_Just hanging onto that feeling, la la laa… la…_

Yes, that's a low point. I couldn't even fake being cheered up by my own attempt at cheering me up. It's enough to drive you nuts in a fruity kind of way.

Staring out at the ocean, my mind thankfully switched gears. Enough about me. Seriously, standing on shore reminded of a movie I saw once. In it a lady walked right into the foamy waves, drowning herself. That image stuck with me for so long probably because it was so possible yet not. Seeing that sort of thing makes you kinda wonder what it feels like and reminds you that, taking into account that the world is a big place with a long past, someone's already done it.

But I've gotten water up my nose before and got to thinking that drowning would _not_ be good for me or my health. I didn't want to die—I had to work the next day. The scarier thing was that while I was thinking about drowning, I'd actually been walking into the ocean. There must be a time when the mind separates from the body because I was up to my waist by the time I realized what I was doing.

Stupid brain, trying to drown me without my permission. Oughtta punish it. Note: buy lots of hard liquor, gold paint, and MDMA a.k.a. E.

Then, like a kick in the head, I realized _why_ I was in the water.

The ocean is vast, right? A good place to hide something, to take something away, to swallow something whole. It's part of the horizon, beyond which millions of possibilities lie. I wasn't trying to kill myself, oh no, but rather, I was searching for someone to reappear after being taken away… over the horizon, the possibility that maybe… All I'd been doing for the last year was _wait_ for a return from far away, but now I could turn the waiting into _searching_. I'd seen a reason to.

Of all the possibilities, Sora could be alive. I saw him. Heck, maybe he'd just been on a long vacation, living it up on some other tropical island with Kairi and me nowhere near his thoughts. As long as he wasn't dead I was fine with him being an ass, because he couldn't _really_ be dead. Could he? Anything but that.

It's funny how needy a human can be. _"I want you alive", "I want you to think of me." _If such weakness were a person I'd stab it a few times to teach it a lesson, maybe gouge an eye for good measure. So with me realizing how full of emptiness I'd been, I felt sort of lost—lost while right behind my home. Almost amusing, but mostly pathetically sad. More so because my pants were wet and wet pants is not a good feeling.

Then I felt the air change. A huge haze blanketed the sun, covering everything with the shadows of moving clouds. The dull noise of waves on my eardrums festered into something sounding like a voice. It sounded ominous, like _her_ (you know who's) voice when she warned me about not looking good in turtlenecks (what a weirdo). I could feel the electricity and atmospheric stuff change. This is the hallmark of bad luck. I didn't attempt to run because… I'm sorta on an island. Nowhere to run but swim.

'_Run but swim_'... hmm.

Anyway, I considered myself brave enough to face these sorts of faceless fears. I'm brave, right? Even if no one's got my back?

…Right…?

I turned around and saw a progression of footprints. They were weaving back and forth like a kid's who couldn't take in the scenery quick enough. I traced my way to the body that'd made them and saw the same blue eyes from the market staring back from a distance. Water was splashing the sand in front of him and he just stood there. Staring.

My eyes don't lie—though my brain does at times. Was it or wasn't it him? Could I trust myself or not, knowing that (delirious) hope can skew rationality and reality?

There was some urge in me that made me need to hear this person's voice.

He reached out his hand towards me and I came running. Running, running, running, though I know better than to turn my back to the ocean. You have to be a real stud like me to be able to run in water, too. That scene reminded me of something from long ago but backwards somehow. I didn't wanna actually reach out for his hand because if it were an illusion I'd look pretty stupid sticking my hand into vacant air.

No, he was real. I'd said so earlier and that's what I believed. This was Sora, he wasn't dead, and he was right in front of me, calling me without using his voice.

Now regarding the matter of what to do in this sort of situation. It'd been a year! That's 365 ¼ days. Multiply that by 24 to get the hours, multiply that by 60 to get the minutes and then 60 again to get the seconds. That's a long time! Should I play catch-up? Yell at him for being gone? Bawl because we missed him?

My own personal style took care of that impediment of not knowing what to do, "It's you, right? I'm not dreaming?" I was hoping for an answer, hoping more that it'd be in a voice I recognized.

"Who'd you think I was? Santa Clause?"

That would've made more sense but that didn't matter. He spoke! He was real all right and it was Sora for sure.

"That's you?" I said, louder. It was all enough for my mind to fall into awe-induced blankness.

"Riku, what can I say? I'm here."

"Were you…? Where were you!" I was happy though it might've seemed like I was getting angry. I call it '_relieved wrath_'. "You didn't call or anything, ya moron! Where the hell were you!"

What, had he been going out of his way to avoid me?

"Not exactly here, but not really anywhere else either."

Ermm…

"I don't know what that's supposed to mean, so I'm not gonna ask. I can't believe… I have to— you're alive, I have to tell everyone!"

"Why. Who cares," he shrugged.

"Just come with me." I didn't picture myself being able to get this irate if I found him. I also didn't picture him being so dumb about it.

I had to show someone that I found him, didn't I? Well, not if he had anything to say about it. He was like deadweight and refused to follow. I grabbed his arm and pulled hard.

"Hey, that'll fall off. I told you, I'm here."

"I _know_ you're here! Not everyone else that thinks you're missing does!"

His eyebrows nearly met at the middle of his forehead, looking like he was thinking too hard. Then he looked sad. Why? Maybe felt bad for deceiving us. Or not. Was his disappearance some ploy? How the hell was I supposed know. It seemed both unlikely but not impossible for him to be capable of playing games like that.

"Sora. You don't seem to be able to understand. You were missing for a long time!"

"Not missing, just not here."

I didn't like this cryptic Sora. What happened to being blunt? To the _you__'re-looking-kinda-chubby-there-Kairi-what's-the-new-diet_ kind of behavior? (That might be an exaggeration, though.)

He pulled some super-judo foot action and suddenly I was tripped up (I was off guard. Really.). My arms and legs were sprawled out like I was making a snow angel in the sand. A sand angel to be precise. What was happening? I tried to get up. He was pinning me down pretty well.

"_I_ was the one searching for _you_, Riku." (Crap, man. Nothing good was gonna come out of that situation, I knew that much.) "Help me. I need you but you can't ask why. You can't tell anyone."

I decided at that moment that I was dealing with some type of evil-clone thing. The person holding me down could've been someone _else's_ spiky-headed Sora but not _ours_. Who on this island would know how to do that? Make an evil clone, I mean.

"Sora… you in trouble? Get off… can't…"

He didn't seem to hear. He just kept his arms fast around me. There isn't a word efficient enough to describe how utterly strange, uncomfortable, _and_ awkward that was.

Despite the insanely high amount of discomfort, I managed to miss the feeling of something pricking the skin on my neck. I only noticed it when I tried to push him off. _That_ brought pain, oh my, right in my neck.

"What're you doing…!"

Soon it felt as if the skin of my body was sinking, settling on my deflated innards. Or maybe that feeling was an overreaction brought on by panic. Who knows. And if I didn't say it before, this was all as normal as a straight circle. It was like he was latched onto my neck.

Haha, just like a vampire thing.

Ha—vampire.

Actually, that word's funny. Vampire. If you say it enough times it doesn't sound like a word anymore.

I became more lightheaded as more time passed. Everything became funnier, too. Sora was alive! Kairi was sick! I was dying! I couldn't stop laughing, except for the fact that I couldn't physically do it. So I laughed inside my head, where most laughing occurs anyway.

When he finally moved back, I saw him use a blurry arm to wipe his blurry, blurry mouth. I heard a small voice say something and then he disappeared. I think that voice was me, "_why_". I felt some slow stuff dribbling down my neck and for Christ's sake, were tears burning my eyes? Nope, it was sand. Sand in my eye. Sand in my eye and all over my wet clothes and in my hair. Frick.

Joke's on him though. I was still alive. Aren't vampires supposed to kill people? Again Sora proved he's worse than I am at everything. If _I_ were a vampire I'd do the job right. I'd kill me good and take away the curse of the morning after.

But I wasn't a vampire—yet.

Maybe I'd never be.

Maybe Sora was.

Or maybe he wasn't.

* * *

AN: Thanks for r&r! Ganboro!


	3. 3

AN: Someone's going a little nuts around here and it ain't Mr. Peanut. That guy's the least nuttiest peanut I know. I've seen elephants nuttier than that guy.

* * *

-3-

I woke up in one of the worst ways possible: with sand down my pants and the gnawing feeling that a huge flaw had been implanted into the universe. I hate it when that happens.

I just laid there, kinda taking in the scenery. I hadn't seen the sunrise in a long time so opening my eyes to the colors of morning fanning into the sky was pretty nice. Staring at the sun always gave me peace—a painful, retina-scorching, oh-god-it-hurts-please-stop sort of peace. So I guess it was ok that my neck was as stiff as it was, fixing my face towards that sunrise. It was so damn pretty that I might as well have been staring at it.

Actually, no. I remembered that I hate the sunrise and that I didn't wanna see this one either. My neck was just so stiff I couldn't turn away.

Heeeyyy, what on earth I was doing on the beach sleeping among, if not directly on, a plethora of unsanitary things like crabs and seagulls and wet sand? Yeah, I _know_ I live near the beach but I haven't fallen asleep out _on_ the beach ever since I was little—when I'd been watching a meteor shower for hours and hours.

I reached up to massage the muscles in my neck, hoping that I'd hit some magic something or other that would unknot the stiffness. Instead, I felt something flake off into my palm (dried blood) and pain. I poked at one of the soft scabs on my neck almost tore it off when a nail snagged it. Ow. Let us never forget that pain... for it was a good sign. It proved everything I remembered happening really did happen and wasn't something I dreamed up during a heat stroke.

My mind was enveloped in a fog of vaporous memories… hearing Sora's voice, having sand in my eye, and then…

Then…

…looking down I saw…

…streaks of blood on my shirt. That made it two shirts in one (well, now it was two) days. What am I, made of shirts? I didn't know how to clean blood off clothes except by throwing them away and buying new ones. Then what, am I made of money to buy new shirts? Bloody 'fraid not.

Bloody. Get it? Do you get puns? I do!

Anyway, I coulda imitated a beached whale all day for the sheer entertainment purposes but I had to go to work.

Yeah Right.

I wasn't about to take a chance of messing things up at the twinkling palace I had the privilege to call temporary-summer-crummy-job-work. That'd be _bad_ since I had no other place to go to be praised (yes, I am a praise whore) for the model citizen that I am (no, I don't have a big ego). My position as Mr. Up-and-Coming could not, nay, _would not_, be compromised.

What? Hearing myself think so dork-ily made me wanna begin a thorough process of self ass-kicking… had my neck not already been kicking my ass.

Taking my sweet time, I made sure the rest of my body worked and made the million-mile journey home. When I looked straight ahead the shooting pain made me turn back to the side so it probably looked like I had a nervous tic. It was funny but not in a funny way. See what happens when you sleep in the wrong position? You get attacked by a vampire and get a crick in your neck! No, wait, that's not right…

The first thing I did when I got inside was call The Boss (he likes being called that) and told him I'd be out. He yelled at me, the ungrateful prick, but that anger over me being gone meant that I was needed, right? And maybe that was why I stopped feeling relief and began feeling some sort of anger when it came to Sora. He'd been gone, no helping that, but now I wanted him around since he was around to be around.

I had more than a few questions for him to answer. Which means that I needed him.

* * *

A shower never felt so good. An engulfing warmth after being hung out to dry all night. I think I heard myself sigh, perfect for a soap commercial if some cameras were to pop out of nowhere, assuming that cameras popping out of nowhere is normal.

After purging sand from my various _crevasses_, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and, holy crap, my heart jumped like a kangaroo on speed. I just happened to be a lot paler than the last time I checked. And yellowish. Now, where did I see that before? My brain conjured up Kairi's spookily pale and yellow face.

That's when I decided that a one-on-one talk with that woman was in order. She was a key. But what kind of weird stuff was she into all of a sudden? Did it have to do with Sora since she became so shady at the mention of his name? What was Sora doing lately that dealt so much with blood? And biting? Was he missing because he'd been subjected to brainwashing? Huh, was he? A brainwashed killer vampire on the loose!

Kairi must've known something about what was going on with Sora because she's right to point out the fact that I _don't_ look good in turtlenecks (gee, wonder how I coulda overlooked _that_). What else would I use to cover the bruise and scabs on my neck? My bruise radiated the assorted unhealthy colors that flesh can make and I wasn't about to use no Sheer Ivory #207, SPF 20, All Day Stay cover-up to provide flawless coverage that lasts the whole day (even in rain).

Ugh. That meant Sora bit her, too. That promiscuous monkey. Let's not allow time for a mental image to form.

Anyway, despite my other obvious concerns, I also rediscovered the life outside my daily routine. Whoda thunk it. The world suddenly felt open, like I could finally grasp how friggin' huge it is. I wasn't anywhere that day but at home, wondering "what do I do, what can I do, what should I do…"

Oh golly gosh, I was so excited about everything that I crashed down on my couch and stayed there. Getting the blood drained out of you zaps your strength, you know. I wanted nothing more than to sleep and forget everything, at least for a while… I stared up at the ceiling, begging my brain to please shut up… drifting up towards that distant white, blank… so sleepy…

…Suddenly, in my mind, I was there again. The night of that heavy storm. Dark clouds suffocated every inch of blue sky… it happened a couple weeks after Sora had disappeared… as if nature was rubbing a lifetime's worth of misfortune in our faces. I swear that out there some deity created that storm on purpose, to mess us up and ruin any trail or trace or evidence that could have been left behind leading to my Dear Friend. Somehow, I felt this tempest was a challenge, getting me all riled up as it did… I mean, what more could it do to me, I wasn't afraid of that dark. There was nothing to gain in only relinquishing the fear, but to somehow become part of it… the power to control one's destiny no matter the route… despite being so screwed over…

Then I was startled awake. Man, I thought I was thinking really hard, but I'd just fallen asleep and dreamed of a memory. Felt pretty dumb for being goaded by a storm. Stupid storm.

Man. It was all down hill from this point. As soon as something begins it begins to end but the ending of the beginning, also known as the beginning of the middle, is always fraught with confusion. I didn't wanna bother with this anymore even though I hadn't even attempted to solve the mystery yet. Up until I actually found him (or he found me), I woulda done anything for Sora. What gives? Riku, I am very disappointed in you.

There was a slightly sickening feeling weighing down the bottom of my stomach. My cobwebbed emotions became vivid again, bright and piercing. It's like the shame of just not knowing what happened to him made me literally sick of my own stupidity… that maybe I was too stupid to do anything now if I couldn't have done anything back then either. Sora's disappearance was such an important thing but no one knew anything about it. Worse than that, it was such an important thing and _I_ didn't know anything about it. How do you loose track of a close friend on an enclosed habitat? I couldn't manipulate any explanations make it sound any better.

So basically I was stuck between the senses of purpose, humiliation, and trying too hard not to care.

Really. I tried to forget about it, or "move on". Made myself busy, tried to excel at everything and get the praise due for the self-induced suffering. Light, you know, if it were alive, would move too fast to ever get lonely. But it doesn't pay to be the best, you can't ever rest (I'm so good I rhyme all the time). And as if that wasn't icing on the cake, Sora suddenly reappeared out of nowhere and acted as if _no_thing yet _some_thing had happened. Showing up with no explanation, no nothing, and messing up my happily unhappy life. The next time I saw him, was I supposed to pretend he didn't mess things up?

Then again, most of the aforementioned stuff is crap. What can I say, I'm full of it.

Sora's disappearance didn't make my life miserable. I did it to myself. I tried to make myself busy so that someone who'd left me could completely leave me for good (meaning that I wouldn't even _think_ about them again). I don't like admitting that I need something because that means I acknowledged it and… what to do when it's gone now that I know I need it? Such a naked vulnerability.

So, what did we learn today, class? In reference to Riku: Suffering equals Happiness. FakeHappiness is not equal to GenuineHappiness. In application, if a train leaves Manhattan at 6:00 at 80 mph and a monorail in Beijing leaves at 16:00 at 800 kph, what kind of happiness is Riku feeling today? (The answer is C: None)

Just for a little longer, I wanted to be alone (which is easy because that's how I live. Alone. Boo-hoo, right?). I was so confused just trying to find out how I _felt_ about this whole thing, much less what I was going to actually _do_ about it. Should probably put my thoughts into some coherent order before anything else…

But, as we've all come to expect, nothing is that simple around here.

Doomed to a life with super catlike skills and the uncanny ability to sense impending danger, I heard an almost unnoticeable scratching noise at my window. My head shot towards that direction and ouch. Stiff neck. A tear almost fell, but it was probably because I was thinking, "_Why meeee and why NOW?_"

A shadow moved across that same window and I thought that, yes, this _was_ a good day. The greatest freakin' day in the history of the whole freakin' universe. In an alternate or parallel universe. Maybe I _am_ in the alternate or parallel universe. Never thought of that… hmmm…never mind! My house was under siege but more importantly, so was I.

Gosh damn it, man, Fate just knows how to push my buttons. I'd had enough, that was it, I'd had it. I stormed outside to the side of the house, no baseball bat for defense. When I caught the shirt of a retreating figure, how could I _not_ sound scary when I fumed, "Wanna mess wit' me! Come git some, sucka!"

Feigning courage sometimes actually makes you have some, but feigning toughness made me subtract 20 points from my own score. It wasn't such a smart thing to do, now that I think of it. What if it I'd caught someone that was equal with me in skill? Then it would've been too much power for any one planet to handle. A classic Clash of the Titans. Too bad that I was a weak girly-man in my current state (_only_ because I had no blood left in me.)

Another funny thing was when the scenery was suddenly upside down after a fist punched my face. And also, an upside-down Sora staring down at me with his fist extended.

With my point of view all wrong it was embarrassingly obvious that I'd been defeated, and easily so. But, hey, if it made Sora feel better about himself by hitting a sick guy, as Prince Hamlet said in Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, "the cat will mew and the dog will have his day."

Wait a second, did he just intentionally hurt me?_ AGAIN!_ This damn dog was crazy. Knock eet off wit' dat sheet you son uv a beech.

"Sora! Don't… someone's house… else…" (In my mind, I'd clearly said, _"You bastard! Don't sneak around someone else's house!"_)

"You know my name," he said, slightly taken aback.

After a little bit of staring at each other, and me waiting for him to apologize profusely, he wordlessly stuck out his hand to help me up. His hand was real. I was holding it and he was pulling me up. Is it just me or did it take a lot for me to truly believe that Sora was back? To get it out of my system, for the last time, I will say it: Sora was alive and back. Now stop saying it, you! ("You" referring to me.)

It took him a while for him to recognize me, but I didn't blame him because of the lapse in my normally aesthetic (sarcasm applied here) appearance. Still, that non-recognition made me wonder if it were part of some elaborately unfunny joke. He recognized me earlier, no? _Yeesss_.

"Riku, right? What're you doing here?"

"Explain!" I pointed at my neck, which he overlooked completely. I tried to bring emphasis back to my victimization, "Then running off!" I grabbed at his jaw to look in his mouth for whatever teeth things he'd poked me with. Yet I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. He just ducked out the way, him being the comedian that he is. Talk about clueless. Durr.

"I didn't know you'd be here. I was just—"

"Bullshit," I sneered, "you know that I _live_ here. Even if you didn't, which I doubt, what were you doing sneaking around someone's house?"

Who can be angry, question a motive, and understand the answer at the same time? Not I, said Riku (that's me). I saw him talking, heard him make noise, but he made no sense.

"I heard something in my head, Riku. It was calling me here. I was following it."

* * *

AN: (soap opera music) _Destiny_ is starting to make an appearance… sweet Lawd!! 


	4. 4

AN: The best quote is "why don't you try making sense?" It's great. Forget "no heart, no friends." Who cares about that.

* * *

- 4 -

If I had a penny for every drop of rain that fell on Destiny Island during one second of the rainy season, I'd have a_ lot_ of money. If I had a penny for every wish or wishful thought, I'd own my own solar system (or at least half of one, co-owned with that one rich computer guy). But if I had a penny for everything that Sora said that made sense, I'd have _a_ penny.

"So… what _exactly_ is 'it'?" I was positive he wasn't talking about a cell phone when he said something was calling him here to me—he's bad with technology, the lugnut.

(Cell Phone: (fancy-schmancy polyphonic ringtone)

Him: "Hello?"

Me: "Push 'send' before talking into it."

Him: "Oh, ok. Hello?"

Me: "I said push the button."

Him: "H—hello? Quiet, Riku, I can't hear them."

Phone: (ring)

Thus technology wasted…)

But back to reality. Back to the metaphorical rattlesnake that sinks its metaphorical fangs into your metaphorical ass.

"A voice led me here."

…So in addition to everything else he was hearing voices. Grrreat. He probably saw dead people too, like that one kid from that one movie. You know, that one kid.

My face still kinda-sorta ached from when he punched me in the jaw. Maybe I shouldn't have startled or yelled at him, I woulda punched me too if I were him, but so what. I wasn't him and he wasn't me. With the thought that he had the chutzpa to hit me _and_ think I'd fall for his lame excuses, I became a _shade_ more irate.

"Get in the house."

"Huh?"

"I said get in the house."

See, I'm under the impression that in order to extract answers you must first corner the animal, I mean, person. This situation called for answers, oh yes, about a ton of them. We can beat out the lies later.

"I don't—"

"Just get in the damn house! You said a voice was calling you here, right!"

"But… who _are_ you?"

He actually meant it when he asked that, quirked eyebrow and all.

"The hell—you just…!"

Stupid games. Sure it could've been a joke but I was _not_ in the mood, especially if it meant messing with my heartstrings. I didn't have a problem with being hurt but rather with the reason _why_ it hurt. Why'd it hurt like this to not be remembered? Why did it hurt like this… Hey, I never said I wasn't a sensitive guy. (Laugh at that, 'cause I do, like this: haha.)

"Bad enough you were gone but then coming here and playing this crap." Even if I couldn't stop myself from seeming totally pissed off, I knew Sora was too smart to think I was mad at only _him_. Because I wasn't. It was just that… the something inside me that'd already cracked began to crumble. Everything falling into place by first falling apart. "Quit acting dumb."

How was it that he was there in front of me but not there _with_ me? He was never the brightest crayon in the tool shed or the sharpest tool in the crayon box but this was like his brain was on hibernation mode. How could he not remember me? How dare he.

"I didn't say I didn't remember you." He looked me straight in the eye, "I know your _face_, you're Riku, but I asked you who you _are_. You're different."

"And you're still an idiot."

Sora didn't say anything for a while before the gem of, "It kinda looks like a statue in the rain" came falling from his mouth.

"_What_?" (That's _"01110111011010000110000101110100?"_ if you translate it into binary. Who needs to remember pi when I have this?) Maybe he'd made best friends with Mary Jane, ifyouknowwhatImean, over the past year. "Stop changing the subject."

"When you cry. The face is still as the water runs down."

"Yeah? Well, you look like… like…"

For once my brain failed me; I couldn't make up a smart remark. I failed to give a crap about it. Paint me the color "embarrassed", whatever that might be (I'm thinking it's some sort of red). In addition, now I had to punish my face for and crying when I didn't say it could.

"Tell anyone I bawled and I really will kill you. _Understood_?"

He laughed, "It really is you. Good to feel you're not angry anymore."

"I'm seriously pissed off over here."

"Yeah. Right." (This would be where I'd get that penny I was talking about.)

My neck remembered to hurt when he took a step closer. I inched back as he reached out to touch my no-no spots… he laid a hand over the big ol' owie on my neck and the other hand on my jaw. But it was ok because… that made it stop hurting.

Well… huh.

"Now you know who I am?"

"It's not dark anymore. I can feel it, you really are you."

Sure, if you say so, guy.

* * *

After laughing off what happened (it was a laff and a half, I'll tell you), we finally made our way into the house. I sat him down at the kitchen table. Ain't it funny, _him_ criticizing _me_ for changing. 

"Umm. Want some tea? Green or ginger…"

"No."

"…Jasmine or oolong… " (I know too many kinds of tea for my own good, and I lied because I had none) "Want some… er… fruit?"

"No thanks."

"Want a piece of cake… so do vampires hear voices all the time?" Egads, such a flawless execution of conversational skills. I must say that the way I seamlessly made way to the real point of the conversation was _perfect_. "What's wrong with you, I'm not a vampire am I because you bit me and vampires make the people they bite into vampires too and I don't wanna…"

"Vampire? What're you talking about? "

"It hurt when you did it, y'know, when you _bit _me," I said, pointing to my neck.

"Nothing's there." (Note how he didn't say, "_I didn't bite you._")"You think I believe that?"

"But there isn't."

I wanted to stay there and stare at him, saying with my eyes "_you are one crazy __mofo_" I knew what I was talking about. I'd seen the damn bruise and scabs on my neck less than an hour earlier in the mirror. I'd just felt them minutes ago! Why wouldn't they still be there? I trusted myself.

Before I knew it I was in front of the bathroom mirror. Seems like the roadrunner outfoxed the coyote again. (Or is it outcoyote the coyote? A coyote isn't a fox, so how can he really outfox a coyote?)

"How did you—" I was yelling to him through the open bathroom door, "It's gone!"

Scabs? Bruise? Pale yellow color? No, no, no, and no more need for a turtleneck! If anything, I didn't want too much to resemble a turtle. Ever.

I came back, slumping down into my chair like a sack of potatoes. Yum, potato. Chips. Hey, quit it. Anyway, Sora sat there with an expectant half-smile nestled on his face. Don't tell me…

"You did that?"

"Curaga," he said.

I get it, sure. That surely meant "yes" in some crazy moon language.

"Ya don't say." Wow. Not only did he come back as a vampire but as a _magical_ vampire. That heard voices. So many strange, _straaange_ things—oh Sora, you are so screwed up. If only people came with a warranty. "Thanks."

But know what would've made everything much easier? If he didn't bite me in the first place. Wait, know what'd make it loads easier than that? If he weren't a vampire.

"Does a vampire—"

"I'm not." A patented Sora moment: oblivious, "I'm not a vampire. Why do you keep saying that?"

"Then what do I call someone who sucks blood?" Yep, it made sense. Unless you're a mosquito or a vampire bat, you had some issues if you drank human blood. "Or are you telling me you cut people's necks as a hobby, huh, that you're a creepy criminal trying to be a vampire?"

"I don't know." Was that confusion on his face? He seemed so smart earlier (i.e. asking me who I _really_ am) but now didn't seem to posses a thought in his head. "Sorry… but when I said I needed you, you didn't run away did you?"

"Know what? I don't care about that anymore." Why did I lie so much? Hell yes I cared. "As long as you're alive and here, I don't care." Ok, so I didn't lie that much. "At least tell me where you've been. You ran away or what? Got lost? Wasn't that you at the market that other day?"

He nodded slowly, "I was there." He reminded me of a kid admitting to breaking a neighbor's window, "I remember being hungry…"

So! He was out sucking people dry and in public! Had he no shame? Sucking someone then high-tailing it outta there to not get caught. (Hey, that sounds kinda dirty.) That was the explanation of the mob at the market yesterday (that was only _yesterday_?) and why that person pointed at me and said, "_Him, too_!" She musta thought that since there was blood on me that I'd been involved with whatever Sora was doing. Which was sucking people. In public. Ha ha.

"Sorry…?" I said. Why was _I _sorry? Because I was trying to offer solace, you jerk.

Wait a sec. I was at the market during the _day_. He drank my blood during the _day_. Maybe I needed to go back to Vampire Myth 101 because I thought vampires didn't like sunlight. Then what was he? A hybrid vampire prototype that could withstand daylight and possess thrice the normal vampiric killing power? No, I most certainly hoped not.

"Maybe _you _were the one lost, Riku."

"Was not." I couldn't come up with an argument because "lost" seemed to be a relative term now that I thought about it. "If you weren't gone then why did you disappear from _me_?"

Avoiding me, are you? I'll show you…!

"I couldn't get to you until now. Kairi kept me—"

Hold up, wait a cotton pickin' minute, "You're telling me you were with _Kairi_ the whole time?" That bit of news made me wish I'd been a better friend to her—so I could use her to find out where Sora was. Anger. Riku _mad_! Riku _SMASH_! (Like the Hulk impression?) Turns out the woman knew something all along! Shenanigans and bold faced lies!

"Ran away with her and just left me hanging?" Ohh, did I have a plan for her—I mean, I _wish_ I had a plan for her! What could I do that would make her… blech. Forget it. Was I still so malleable to petty anger? Probably, but never mind. She put a bad taste in my mouth. Forget revenge for now.

"It's not like that."

"It's never '_like that_' is it? Then what was it like?" (You know, this conversation would've probably gone a lot faster if I stopped interrupting him.)

"She kept me from finding the voice."

Voice, _voice, __**voice**_! Always talking about the "_voice_"!

"What voice? What happened, tell me, the memories are there in your brain, I know they are!"

"I don't remember what happened. My brain doesn't recognize memories on its own."

"Then how're you talking? How do you remember the words and what they mean!" (The boiling point for my blood was low that day… since it was all gone!)

He looked solemn all of a sudden, "You should know, Riku, that the heart recognizes memories." (Yes, yeah, of course, you philosopho-freak) "The brain holds them. I can't remember things unless I'm near you. The voice calling me stopped when I found you."

Umm…

…ummm… okay…

Blood. Cooling. Down.

"It wasn't just Kairi but another person. There was the Doctor, they kept m—"

"Lemme guess, kept you "from the voice"." He shot me an indignant look. That was the signal for me to calm the fizz-uck down.

"What were you doing with them? For how long?" Oh man, this one had to be good. Now there was a "Doctor" undoubtedly in evil conjunction with Kairi. And to think, I gave her flowers… but if I hadn't, I never would've run into Sora. 'Twas meant to be, damn it.

"I know I wasn't with them since I was born, but ever since I was alive." Isn't that the same thing? I wasn't going to ask because that'd be a ride right into the dead end of his intelligence. Not in the bad way, don't get me wrong. "I stayed with the Doctor. Kairi visited every day, from behind glass… I knew what she thought… the way that I am now isn't what she wants. Why else would I be stuck in some room? I couldn't help that I wasn't like them, but that wasn't why I broke out. I went looking for the voice, and found _you_."

Frankly, that made me sad. Not just normal sad but very _extremely_ sad. Off-the-meter sort of sad. Guilt for what he was and for what he wasn't, musing over past isolation, having to explain it all to a dumb-dumb like me… Forgive this Riku for he has been a jackass. He did not understand and thought only of his selfish self when presented with the predicament of this being named Sora.

"Well, you did a good job then, didn't you? You're not alone in some room anymore. Don't apologize to anybody."

Yup, justifying his actions sounded like a good thing to do at the moment. I mean, humans are like vampires of the earth… in a way, I guess. Just sucking and sucking (stop laughing) everything out of it. Animals eat the flesh of other animals too, and I'm no vegetarian but that thought still managed to get gross. That kind of consuming hunger only ends when you die and once you die would it really have been worth it? So there. No one is better than anyone else, problem solved, Sora is a-okay in my books again.

But what's really funny is if right now in some other universe a chicken is eating fried human. PETA my butt. Where's my _Homo __sapien_ meat?

"We've been friends since forever," I started to say, but a sudden rush of _something_ flooded into my chest, half surprising and half I-don't-know-what. "Nothing's your fault, it was those other two."

I was beginning to form an idea of what kind of doctor the "Doctor" was when Sora folded into himself, holding his stomach. He had a miserable look on his face. It was quite opposite from anything I'd care to see him express.

"I kinda feel bad. Never did before, but now I do."

Shit. He said that he could remember things when he was near me (how that worked I still needed to know). His feeding habit no doubt had to hurt other living things and with me around he could probably remember doing some of it. Looking at him, the exposed skin beyond the hemline of his shirt, I realized that memories can reside in the sense of touch, too… you remember how things feel… I could hardly bare to imagine it. Drying stickiness on his bloody lips or that stiff feeling on your face when your tears dry…

…oh my god, can he remember the taste?

Poor Frickin' Guy!!

Of course, one way to save him from such memories was for me to stay away from him, but that was out of the question. Along with the bad, he was bound to remember something good. Right? Sure he was. I remember being part of those happy times. Please. Don't let me only bring hurt, because that isn't all there is.

"Don't worry about it." (As if I had authority to say that.) "Speak of it only in past tense."

By the looks of it, Sora had nothing more to say at the moment. Might as well get started trying to find the beginning of this mess.

Let's see.

He said that the brain holds memories but it's the heart that recognizes them. With me around, well, you know, he remembers things. He mentioned a voice… A voice stops calling when it's found, and that "voice" stopped calling when he found me. Then that voice was mine calling him? My voice, his heart, his memories. And what did it mean when he said he _felt_ a change in me? That it wasn't dark anymore and that I really was who I was?

In the name of all things holy, what the hell did that mean?

I mean…

…just…

Shit.

* * *

AN: Cripes and good grief. 

Haha, there was a Haley what's-his-face reference, the kid that did Sora's voice.


	5. 5

AN: You probably already know but just in case: the "heart" we're talkin' about isn't the literal heart but is the spiritual kind of heart. 

_Bento_ boxed lunch.

* * *

�

- 5 -

If memory were cheese, Sora's would be Swiss. Swiss cheese for memory 'cause, ya know… both of them were full of bacterial holes. 

Case in point: Sora didn't remember that time when Kairi got offended when I used the word "dirt". (But that's what her cookies tasted like. Kidding! They tasted like pain, if pain were a flavor.) Her diatribe thereafter was one of those things you _just don't forget._ So, of course, Sora managed to forget.� Too bad for him. It was _funny._ Imagine a P.M.S.-ing banshee that just lost her favorite boy-band CD.

But tsk, tsk, let's not forget that I was on a mission of T&A. "Truth and Answers."

What made this so painful was learning that sometimes whispers are the loudest someone can speak. Sometimes they're the heaviest things to hear and sometimes they sink the deepest inside of you. Such was the case of Sora. His subdued aura hung heavy in the air like the essence of an outhouse baking in the summer heat.

What I managed to gather from him were incomplete memories and many random things (the word "random" not being used lightly). Making sense of it was like trying to make me eat anything with Spam in it: impossible! Perhaps these memory lapses meant that his heart was like Swiss cheese, too (since he'd gone on and _on_ about the heart and memories being connected). 

That couldn't be good, nope, not at all, to have a hole-y heart.

…but, hey… 

I thought he said he could remember things just by having me around. Was he lying? (I knew I couldn't be special. Mama, you _lied_ to me!) Or was he being metaphorical? Maybe he was hiding things? Maybe remembering a little bit at a time was the most he could do. Gawrsh, sure was confusin'. 

* * *

�

And so the day would soon melt into night (the day: "Help me, I'm _meltiinngggg_!") Diamonds would slowly stud the black-velvet sky and all that _crap_. La dee freakin dah, won't it be the most booty-ful thang I ever saw? 

Yes, yes it would be. So much so, in fact, I wanted to sock it in the face just so I could have the honor of marring such beauty. Now if only it had a face. And if only I could reach it. Damn you, sky, for being so far away.

Stop picking on the sky, it never did anything to you.

Yes it did. It had a meteor shower.

And?

That's when Kairi appeared. She messed up.

_And?_

Stop talking to yourself.

Right. 

"C'mon, Sora, let's go outside. Just to the shore out back."

"Why?" 

"It's something we used to do." It was obvious that straightforward interrogating wasn't working. Maybe reenacting some of the stuff we used to do would revive something in that head of his. Kinda like adding Miracle Gro to the dead vegetation that was mercifully referred to as his brain. (That was mean. FINE. I take it back.) "It isn't like either of us has anything else planned."

"All right."

"Wanna take a drink outside?" (Didn't want him to get bored and think, "Hmm! Think I'll have some Riku Jugular Juice!") "Here, soda."

"No thanks."

"Water?"

"Nope."

Yeah, I get it. _Let _my kindness go to waste, go ahead, see if you ever see it again. As for me, I was going to heed the wise words of the drunken man on the street corner: "One beer in the hand is worth a six-pack in the fridge!" 

On our way out, Sora did a very poor job of stifling his laughter. Little did he know that I _meant_ to run into the screen door, damn it. I wanted to make him laugh _on purpose_. Ok, so only that last part of what I said is true.

Outside, we sat on a little pier-ish thing (why was that there? I may never know). It was kinda hot out but kinda not, so I guess you'd call it warm. Wait, let's start over: Outside, we sat on a little pier thing in the warm twilight. The atmosphere made it feel like there was a barrier between us and reality (because we all know that I am, at all times, the most sober person in the world. Any reality distortion is highly irregular, cough, snort, guffaw). It felt like a mellow haze softened the edges of our mangled reality and my impatient frustration.

But as I was saying, we were outside chillin' in the heat, sitting with our legs hanging over the edge of that pier-dock-whatever-it-is. 

"I know you were relieved to see me, even though you were yelling." Hoo-ha, get a load of that guy and his ego! Thinking he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yeah, we all want more of _you_! "I could feel it when you cried." But I guess that was like him, bluntly admitting the truth. It's something I can say I admired.

"Rub it in my face, I dare you." 

It takes a manly man to man-ily cry his man tears, that it does. It was kinda weird for him to point out those supposed vibes he felt coming from me… like me not being "dark" anymore and seeing through my anger. Better not ask; I didn't wanna instigate any more psycho-babble for now. Didn't wanna find out that he was some sort of magical, _psychic_ vampire.

"What did we do out here? Just sit?"

Actually, he was more of an _amnesic_ magical vampire.

"No. Mostly talked… 'bout stuff like how we'd leave Destiny Island when we grew up. We made rafts once, but a storm came and that was the end of that." And that's why we don't live how we ought to be living. Kids are quitters and grow up to be _grown up_ quitters!

Then there followed the sweet sound of silence. My tired mind began wandering away until the question of "why does bottled water need nutritional charts?"started to really bug me. That's when he chimed in, "Why would we want to leave?"

Hmm… because paradise has a Cockroach Season?

"We thought that there could be more out there than what we can see." Oh, what a wonderful stroll down memory lane. Hey, no, wait, the lane has been abandoned! Now it's a graveyard! Rest sweetly in oblivion, dear Spirit of Wonder and Memory, thine death doth suck-eth much-eth lest thou hath died fulfilled. So many defunct dreams, so little time to lament. "The great things we wanted to find _had_ to be out there."

Those questions I used to like to ask... I realized that, if anything, they mirrored my insecurity in a way so I could just play it off. No way to disentangle factual fears from hypothetical horrors. It's how I kept distance between Me, Weak-Me, and Everyone Else… how I coped with how my happiness is—

"Why are you mumbling? I can't hear you."

—_the great thing I wanted to find…_

"I said you suck." No pun intended. Sort of.

"What?"

"Joking. But, really, Sora…" Why'd I have the disheartening feeling of smallness all of a sudden? Better not think of it. "You don't have a place to stay."

"Nope." 

Why was he not self-pitying? Pity yourself already! "Stay here. It's better than wandering the streets, or being in that crazy place full of glass.� I guarantee."

"What about Kairi and the Doct—"

"What about them." Those biz-natches. That's right, _biz-natches_. "You left them didn't you, smart guy?"

"They might—" 

"Either stay here or get caught out there. Quick, better make up your mind in 3,"

"But—"

"2,"

"Riku!" 

"1. Time up. Yes or no?"

"Yeah, fine."

And it was _that_ easy. I was proud of myself even though the answer was kind of a given. If he'd said "no" then Lt. Right Fist might've needed to rough him up a little. Now I could keep track of him, which meant no more sucking anonymous people (I still crack myself up) and making himself known. Plus, being around each other was crucial for the progress of him remembering his forgotten memories and figuring out the answer to the age-old question of '_where the hell were you and what happened?'_

Win-win. (Talk about the blind leading the blind). Cheers for a good plan.

"It'll be weird living with you."

I choked on my drink a little. _Living _sure is a nice euphemism for _mooching_, isn't it? He patted me on the back, as if that would help me to stop choking and dying. It's the thought that counts, or so I've been told. "_Riku, I don't want you to die"_ is a very thoughtful thought indeed because that's just… it's just… I mean…

I wiped the damn tears off my face (because when you choke you tear up, fool!) and looked at him. Don't ask how, but his eyes seemed transparent. The dying sun took away more than the light from his eyes. What if it's like they say, that the eyes are the windows to the soul? An empty soul. Didn't want him to have those empty eyes. I wanted him to remember things, his memories were his alone and I didn't want him to lose any of himself. I didn't want to lose him, either. The things I knew and didn't know about him… I'd rather he kept them, thanks. Loss was a scary thought—even scarier than the thought of being covered in the honey of a thousand stinging bees and then running into a (bi)polar bear.

Wahh! I mean, Arg! I wanted to help but I was lost myself. "I wanna help" are just words even if "wanna" really isn't a word. What was I gonna to DO, maaan? How was I supposed to help? His memory might come back, _then_ what? What if he turned out to be part of a secret military government experiment? I am but a mere speck against them, I am. I could've been biting off more than I could chew and I gots me a big mouth, I tells ya!

Speaking of which, my stomach growled and Sora chuckled. The kind that taunts "you wish you knew what I was thinking!" 

"_What_?" What was so important that he dared disturb me from my conversation with myself? Why was he laughing at my inner (hunger) _paaain_? I didn't eat all day just so I could talk to him and he was laughing? No, worse, he was _chuckling_. "What _is_ it?"

"Nothing," his mouth skewed into a smirk. 

"Spill it."

And some transparent-ness in his eyes gave way to warmth, "Wanna _bento_?"

"Bento!" 

(The ol' bento joke! See, our friend Wakka spoke some sort of pidgin that no one else spoke and/or understood. He'd say things like, "Eh! Wassup mah brudda frum anudda mudda?" We were like, "Eh hey, ya?"One day Wakka asked if Sora wanted a bento. Sora said ok and Wakka got a pair of pliers out of his pocket and said, "Take off yo' shoe, I'ma geev you bento!" Get it, "bent toe"? _Bento_? Then he turned to me, as if I hadn't seen that he'd just done the same joke on Sora two seconds before, and asked, "Wanna bento?" We were kids. It was funnier back then. A knee-slappin', toe-mutilating good time.)

We laughed for a little bit. Inside jokes were always great but I think we still a little were nervous. Oh well. Good start. Maybe soon he'd be able to remember more of what'd happened to him. We'd get his revenge, have his memories, the end.

But… what about the things he remembered but didn't tell me about. He tried to hide something from me just then (jokingly, but still). How much of this "amnesia", if any, was an act? (He seemed a natural to play a feeble-witted dolt. I'm exaggerating only a little. And by a little I mean a lot.) Were there things he was keeping from me? Of course there had to be, but it wouldn't be anything important would it?

He could just be messing with me. Maybe Sora wanted things as they were now. He didn't ask me to fix anything. He could just "use" me as a source of food _and_ shelter. Maybe I'd been putting myself in parts of the plan when I didn't even have the option to choose. Perhaps I should let things be and not impose questions upon it.

But no! Sora never asked for fixin' but it's just one of those things you know you're responsible for as a human being. Maybe he'd like things to be the way they were before—meaning that he didn't need me around to remember himself and didn't need to be so shady about his survival instincts. He was his own person once and more than likely wanted that back. 

Or maybe he liked things the way they were. 

Maybe he didn't. 

Light bulb: Ask him. Booyaka!

Then it seemed quiet again, though it'd never been loud. Only loud thoughts. Breathe, in with the good, out with the bad. Open your eyes, lookit where ya are fer cryin' out loud, Riku. That's right. Outside. So serene, Jelly Bean. I must've been thinking to myself for a long time because the sky had already darkened.

"See that stream of stars?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"It's an arm of the Milky Way. I'm smart, huh?" 

"Sure are."

Who knew, there could be a parallel version of me pointing back at _me_. Me pointing at me, how freaky-deaky that would be? But what help was it to always look at things that weren't and forget the things that were? As to quote that same drunken guy on the street corner, "Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"

Stop running away, Riku. Not to your questions, or to work, or to school, or to your bottle, or into your distracted mind. How did I not expect loss when all I did was run away? Things've happened but it's not too late. I had to stop looking away when the answer was right in front of me. When the answer was so simple.

_What_ answer? There's anything but an answer! Nothing is simple. Not cool.

Neither is talking to yourself in third person.

Neither is confusing yourself _while speaking_ in third person. 

Point taken. Better get back to asking Sora that question. 

"Stars are far away—one could've already died but we still see its light. The light we see is from the past, it takes time to reach our eyes. A change we don't see is _still_ a change, and maybe we believe in something that's not there anymore." Where was I going with this? Needed a connection for _fluid_ conversation. Aw, screw it. "Do you like being like this? I mean, the way you are now? What about the way you were before?"

"I dunno."

"Think."

"I. Don't. Know."

Of _course_ he wouldn't know.� He wouldn't know the difference between his old self and his now-self.

The next thing that slipped out of my mouth was the lamest thing in the world (and I mean in the _whole_ world), "I wanna be near you, y'know? To help you figure out what you want. I want you to trust me. If we're lost, trust that I'll find a way for you." 

And he just looked at me and I imagined his eyes asking "what?"

So I looked back with my eyes saying "so?" 

Then he kept on looking at me and I wondered how eyes could talk. It's frigging dark. 

Meep… uhh… Imagine a deer in the headlights. Now instead of a deer it's me and instead of headlights Sora's face but, haha, Sora couldn't see.

"Look, a bald Sasquatch!" I pointed to somewhere far off. He looked, what a sucker, but that was the point: so he wouldn't look at my face anymore. "Psych. Let's go inside. I have work tomorrow." I had work tomorrow all right. The name of that work? Mission Extract Information From Kairi (or M.E.I.F.K for short). Even if I didn't end up using the info, I still wanted to_ know_ what happened. Was that selfish? Yes? No? Maybe so? I was gonna do it anyway so forget questioning it. "Race ya home." 

Seriously, you could've mistaken me for Superman, with the whole speeding bullet thing.

"Wait for me, spaz!" 

Hardy har har. Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black, Mr. Brain-Gone-AWOL?

Then I remembered how I hated logs because, hey, who put that log down there? Tripping, falling, falling! Face down on the sand! I really was an S-C-R-U-B, scrub. I'd woken up in the sand, got punched and fell on the sand, and was now face down in the sand due to my own ingenious device of tripping over a log. To top it off, I thought a piece of wood stabbed me because I felt warmth in my chest. Blood on another shirt? Unreal! I should've just gone shirtless to save the expense. I checked to make sure I wasn't going to die (stabbed through the heart equals _seething death_!). Nothing was wrong but I still felt warmth over my heart. _In _my heart was more like it.

I'd fallen and couldn't get up!

"You ok?"

"Yep, just making a snow angel." 

"More like a sand angel." 

He helped me up and I dusted myself off. "Tasted better than Kairi's dirt cookies."

His eyes became shiny with laughter tears. Shiny like glass. Which reminded me, "Sora?" 

"Huh?"

"Could you… never mind."

"Could I what?"

"Could you go back and get my drink? I forgot it."

"_Lazy_." He crossed his arms over his chest. Tough guy, are we?

"You don't want me fined for littering, do you?"

"You're still lazy." Yes! Regression-to-normalcy.exe! Bend to my whim, as you always have, haha! I mean…ahem. When he came back, he commented, "It's still almost full"

"You distracted me. Look, the bald Sasquatch's uncle!" 

He didn't look away that time. But, really, Kairi was looking out her window at us from down the housing track. (I _am_ mature, you know. Damn the full moon for being so full of… _moonlight_ and revealing us!) 

But—gasp!—that's probably why he ran away earlier. He saw that Kairi had spotted us and ditched me like any ditching ditcher would (out of his uneasiness towards her and not because of malevolence towards me I assumed). So now Kairi knew that I knew… and that I knew that she knew that I knew. M.E.I.F.K. was going to be a lot easier.

I put my hand on Sora's shoulder, "Let's go inside." I hope Kairi saw that.

* * *

�

The King resigned himself to live like the Pauper. Also known as: Me Sleeping on the Couch. 

"It's late. You can sleep in my room." I opened the bedroom door and saw how pitiable it was in terms of feeling homey. It was all neat-n-tidy. Disgusting. "My clothes are in the closet, use them. I'm leaving early tomorrow." (Nothing like a wake up call from dear friendly Riku, so Kairi should be thankful.) "Wait for me to come back, got it? I'll try for noon. Good night." 

I grabbed some clothes and stuff and was about to leave when he stopped me.

"Wait."

"What now? Want a glass of warm milk? I'm lactose intolerant, you insensitive jerk."

"No. I wanted to�tell you I'm not hiding anything. I trust you. When the darkness is gone, I can feel and remember things. That'll help me know what I need."

I guess he felt obligated to say something lame to make equilibrium for my earlier lameness (it's a matter of science, people). I think it was only me (of course it was only me), but the things he said became less weird to the point of almost making sense. Except for that whole "darkness" thing. And the "feeling" part. And the "remembering". What's up with _that_? 

"Just tell me what you want, alright?" 

It must've been something about that night, something about the darkness itself that left me lonely as I closed the door to my room. I would've put my ear to the door just to try to hear him breathe, but to him I wasn't anything more than someone waiting on the other side of the door.

I wanted to fix for him what was, um, "broken-er"? " Broken-est"? "Most broken"? Well, whatever needed the most fixing, but what was it? I wanted him happy but it depended on him what "happy" meant. Heaven knows that if something contrasts with what I want I get hell bent over it… so here it�goes (I knew I had to say it one day): someone else's happiness didn't necessarily mean mine.

As I walked down the hallway towards Couch Shangri-La, I suddenly thought about how Boss (Il Duce) would yell at me for calling in sick again. That's when I began to think, "screw work."

A workaholic thinking "Sora is a pain in the neck" making a 180 degree turn in 24 hours, becoming a Soraholic thinking "work is a pain in the ass."

Hey, you're not Riku! You're an alien that _ate_ Riku!

Yeah. Enough with the stupidity already. I was worried_ and _confused, no foolin'. My brain felt as if it had been pureed. Stressing situations tend to have that effect.

I had to start calculating. How long would it take for him to know what he wanted? Think. He had to live and to live he had to eat. How often did he have to eat? Every day? Crap, what was I supposed to do? I'd let him feed from me but I'd be a shriveled up mummy man by the end of two days. How would I help him if I were a mummy? Mummies don't know best! In fact, they don't know anything because they're dead! What about his magic juju healing powers? What was I supposed to do tomorrow and the day after and after? Maybe I had to steal pig blood from the restaurant where I worked…

Ugh, I hated thinking about it.

Smite me now, O Great Higher Being, by spontaneous human combustion. Make it all go away in a bright blaze of fiery hell, poof. 

_Please._

But not before I talked to Jose Cuervo and all his lesser-cousin tequilas.

* * *

�

AN: Sacre bleu.

An angry Riku makes for a strange Sora… A Lightened-Up Riku makes Sora seem a bit more normal. How does it relate to the warmth in Riku's heart? Does it at all? I wanna know!


	6. 6

AN: Hi&Thanks!

* * *

-6-

I was so proud of me. Myself. I.

I didn't pass out. I gave up 1/4th of the way to Black Void Ville, population: me. And yes, I know I was exactly 1/4th of the way plastered. Got bored from trying. Thankfully, I received a kindly visitation from Sir Insomnia (who rode in on his… NIGHT MARE. Get it? Nightmare! Night Mare! Ha ha!! I got that off a popsicle stick last week). Many thanks to Sir Insomnia for helping me forget to fall asleep and have some Quality Stewing Time.

Just stewing and stewing and stewing, sovereign over my Planet of Stew and Bathtub Armada. It was just me on the couch, in a reality all my own. Like a bubble. Not an _actual_ bubble but holy crap that'd be cool.

The dark ticking away from yesterday's twilight towards tomorrow's. The galaxy swirling, the universe expanding. Then there was me, the Idiot. Lost, like always, with nowhere new to go. Not even to that Distant Horizon, to the place of hope I'd created to give myself escape. Oh, no. No no no. Must be a glitch. I had to be wrong. I didn't want to go anymore. Somehow I didn't want to know why. Somehow I wanted to trick myself into thinking I was satisfied. Somehow… this was almost good enough.

I mean, didn't I just get what I thought I wanted? Yet given the circumstance, I'm sure you'd understand that it still didn't feel right. Sora was with me, in fact sleeping in my bed at that very moment. If this empty happiness was all I was able to strive for, then maybe I'd be better off wanting nothing at all. Holding onto nothing meant loosing nothing in the end.

Hark, doth mine ears deceive me? Did I just say to give up and trade everything I'd wanted for all this nothing that I had?

Well, yeah. The concept of 'nothing' carries no expectations. I can meet with those kinds of expectations—the kind that doesn't exist!

Wait a minute. No way.

What, was I crazy? Very unlike me to fizz out like a cheap firecracker (which taught me that flammable and _in_flammable _mean the same thing!_ Whoever made up those words owed me back the weeks it took me to re-grow my eyebrows).

I was just tired, yeah, that's it. Time to stop being a wimp. Scary how weak my determination had become. No, not 'scary'. More like it was caused by ignorance. Or denial. Or, more accurately, stupidity.

I had to make sure I protected what's left so there could be a happier ending. I'd heard it too many times, the 'I let it slip through my fingers, I've never been the same' melodramatic nonsense. That kind of crap bothered me. It usually resulted with people going around, 'I am so saaaaad, pity me for I pity myself.' I _did_ feel sorry for them because I didn't wanna be like them. Fading away and beginning to rot from the inside out because they didn't fight for their happiness.

Not only did I see the change in Sora that night, but in myself. Amongst so many other things, this was a test of my true will.

Ok, I'm finished. Grr. I'm friggin lame but I just gotta let it out. No more failure allowed, under penalty of covering my body in paper cuts and soaking in a tub of lemon juice. Up for it?

Of course! It's too important to go without. It's hard to change but change we must! I mean… change _I_ must! A quitter never gets anything worth while. We _know_ this. We will _not_ have this conversation ever again.

And what's with talking to yourse—

Shh, what's that noise? The sunrise…

(noise?)

My eyes nearly burst into flames when the sunrise poked me in the eyes. Hiss, gurgle! Home Maker tip of the day: to keep the pesky sun out of your eyes, sharpen the tip of some wire (decorated with barbs if you wish for the festive feeling) and sew your eyes shut with it. While you're at it, might as well sew your mouth shut, too, to keep noise to a minimum. Yes, that means _you_ Riku. Don't worry about gangrene or tetanus or anything like that; with any luck, you're driving on a hairpin-turn mountain road while sewing yourself shut and you should be plummeting to your death right about…_now_.

With that in mind, raise your hand if you have a life. Not so fast, Riku.

Enough lolling around. I bet I looked like a classic case of coyote ugly. To the bat cave! I mean, bathroom! Must get minty fresh.

* * *

So thirsty. Needed water. Lots…and lots of water.

However, according the law of the Universe, getting a glass of water was comparable to flying to the moon in a cardboard box piloted by a monkey (not one of the smart ones, either).

Problem: no clean cups

Solution: wash a cup. Turn on the faucet; wash one (a cup, not a faucet). Clatter. No, I didn't say _drop_ and _break_ the cup. Great, now you're bleeding. Now your hands are throbbing in pain. Throb, throb. Now clean up the glass carefully. _Carefully_, I said! You just cut yourself again!

Maybe I shoulda listened to the voice but it was more interesting to watch the stuff ooze out. For some strange reason if I found myself, oh, I duuno, let's just say licking my own blood, then we all know what that meant… wait, what _did_ it mean?

Speaking of which, the head honcho chupacabra himself came up behind me, stealthily, such as his kind is inclined to be.

"Holy crap, what the—" No, shut up! I let him stay with me, so shut up. "I mean… awake already, Sora? Kinda early."

He didn't answer, just held my cut hands without saying a word. Why did his touch never hurt even though he touched hurting things? A white-ish light glowed from his hands. The voice in my head stopped talking to me, the world stopped swimming, and I saw my skin mesh back together. The blood evaporated in seconds. Whew, I thought he was going to suck on my fingers (now _that_ woulda been awkward). He'd done something like that before. No, really. "Koala" or something … karaga? kuwaga….?

"Thanks. I'm clumsy, huh?"

As he stood before me, I noticed how hopelessly small he was in my nightclothes. They were already baggy on _me_. Staring at that sight gave me some sort of antsy feeling because this was all weird. Funnily tense. Just plain strange. He wasn't helping to make things better by not letting go of my hands. Or by getting on his tiptoes and putting his face real close to mine. Not to my neck, but to my _face_. What now, was he gonna bite my face? How was I gonna live after he bit off my face?! Not beautifully, that's how.

"…more than blood…" was all he said. Oh, yes, I see. Makes _perfect_ sense. Not.

That wasn't even the weird part. When he breathed in, the air in my lungs got sucked out. Like he was stealing my breath away, literally. My heart began beating fast because that scared me, no joke. I pushed him back while catching my breath as if I'd just been running.

"What the _hell_? Can't find your own air? It can't be too hard to find!" No, stop, no more smart aleck-y stuff. Calm down. I remember expressly wishing that all I wanted was for him to be happy. If that consisted of him pilfering the air from my lungs then, damn it, he was gonna pilfer my air. But…_you know_…yeah.

"Listen, this is weird." I looked at his tired looking face and tried to keep some 'dignity' (whatever _that_ is) on mine. "I'm not used to people being around. I'm no lone wolf but, seriously, it's _weird._ So, what do you want for breakfast?!" Yes, yes, change the subject. "I have cereal with cartoons on the box."

"I'm not hungry."

"Oh… _oh._ It's not…?" Please, please no biting. Needles were one thing but teeth were another. Especially if those teeth were attached to a vampire. Who was your friend. Who used to _not_ be a vampire.

"No."

Saved again.

"I'm leaving soon, then." Didn't want to eat with him watching me. The disturbing feeling of being watched trumped my growling stomach.

I went to clean up the glass (carefully) and finally got that darn drink of water. Before I left the house, I reminded him to stay put, no wandering the streets eating people. Ha. I was assuming he'd remember this. If he didn't and decided to break out, all I needed to do was follow the trail of people wearing turtlenecks.

"Kairi probably knows you're here. If she comes around, don't let her see you! Don't breathe, don't move, don't take a leak. Leave this house only if you really have to."

"Riku, I really—" He grabbed onto my arm before I could leave. His grip was pretty weak, "Wait—"

Exasperated sigh, exclamation point. "When I come back, I'll listen all you want. Eat some food. Change your clothes. Watch TV. Whatever you want, do it. But for now, two words: Hakuna Matata, _no worries_. I'll be back soon." I pushed him back into the house and closed the door. I didn't wanna bring him with me where I was going. Mission Extract Information From Kairi (M.E.I.F.K.) was a dish best served alone. Shaken, not stirred. Minced but not… umm, grated.

Driving my sea-salt rusted car, I asked myself "Why don't you do it tomorrow? He needs you _now_. Kairi will always be around."

Au contraire, smarty pants. Where there's smoke there's a bong in your hand, I mean, there's fire.

Smoke (Kairi): _"You don't look good in a turtleneck."_

Smoke (Sora): _"I need you but you can't ask why… I know your _face_ but I asked you who you _are_…Kairi, the doctor…"_

Fire and brimstone time. I knocked on her door after arrival.

"Riku." The flat tone of voice told me that she'd been expecting me. Ever the clever girl.

"How's your _neck_? Sore?" Not that it mattered, but she was still yellowish and wearing a turtleneck. No cue-ala for you. I didn't know why I felt my nails digging into my palm. I have short nails. Very short.

"Mutual biting going on between you two?" I tried at it sarcastically but my throat got tight and the patronizing laugh got choked. Oh, I get it. I was feeling sorry for myself.

Well, if it was any consolation, I thought of it like when I ate sushi. It didn't mean I liked the fish as a person—or…as a fish. No personal connection. Just eat. Nothing noble about food. Nope, I wasn't important. See any special people? No, not one.

"I saw he found you again," she said, ignoring what I'd said to her. She sounded almost amicable, "What do you want from me, aren't you happy enough?"

"What's the big idea hiding this from me?" (Sharp as a knife, I never miss a beat (beet), har har), "Tell me what you did to Sora. He already told me a lot," (poetic license applied here), "don't bother trying to lie or hide anything. I just want to hear you admit that you're wrong."

Truthfully, I half expected her to defend herself vehemently. Instead, she said, "Wrong? If he really told you so much, then you know you would've done the same thing as I did."

Damn. Caught. "Don't turn this around onto _me_."

She smiled in a go-away-already-I'm-tired kind of smile. "I have something for you," she said. She went inside and came back with a piece of paper, "If you _really_ wanna know everything, follow the directions to this address. He knows more than I do about it. I've done enough, once you see everything… you'll agree." I saw a fat tear plop off her face right before she slammed the door in mine. Had the nerve to shrug me off and send me off, did she?

"Trying to be mysterious and shit! Think you'll get off that easy, do you!" I yelled at the door, "Because you—because you _won't!_ I can wait right here till you're good and ready. I don't need this." I crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it against the door. Naturally, I immediately dove after it and smoothed it back out. "Damn it. I have all day, you know."

After a minute or so of waiting, I began to walk off. Hell no I didn't have all day.

I heard her door open, felt something hit the back of my head, and then heard the door slam again. I looked back and, aw, she'd returned my flowers via airmail (a.k.a. throwing them at my big fat head.) I picked up those harbingers of doom and saw a hastily written note put in it:

_"I really am sorry,  
Kairi"_

Translation from female to normal language:

"_Riku, __**you'll**__ be __**very**__ sorry,  
Banshee"_

Well, that went down as well as the Bay of Pigs. M.E.I.F.K. status: failed.

It was for the better, I supposed. Didn't want much to talk to, look at, listen or pay attention to her. I was tired of pretending as if she mattered, anyway (even though she technically did). How hard was it to get a straight up answer around here?

Royally screwed. Again.

* * *

AN: Slowly yet surely…


	7. 7

AN: You know what's spooky? When airport security detects nitroglycerin on your luggage. You know what's annoying? When they inform you that nitroglycerin is found in soap. So the guy had to go through my stuff because of soap. What does 'exfoliate' mean anyway?

Anywho, here the AU really kicks in. (Hey, AU is the symbol for gold! This is pure gold.) Forget that you have to travel to different worlds to find different characters. They are but vessels, I care not for them but to use them. Exercise that imagination! Guess you'd have to be pretty far into the game to know the world here. I dunno, I wouldn't call it a spoiler but if it is and you read it, oops! To be safe, I'd say to finish the game 3-10 times. Obsess thoroughly.

* * *

-7-

Statement: The path to hell is wide and paved with good intentions.

Question: Is this hell?

Answer: No, this is but an extension of home.

To put it in layman's terms, home ended up being a mystery. I lived on Destiny Island my whole life. One would assume that'd be ample time to explore this accursed, wave torn, paradisiacal speck in the sea. Well, one would be sadly mistaken and suffering from I-know-it-all-ism (the only cure being a good kick in the head, which I am more than happy to apply). Some places are difficult to find. Some are better left unremembered while some deserve to be forgotten.

After following Kairi's directions, I found myself in such a place where only fools ventured and angels probably feared to tread. Who'd wanna explore the world _out there_ when there was a world _right here_ on Destiny Island to explore?

Actually, I'd rather explore _out there_ and take my chances with pirates and sharks. Screw this place. This part of Destiny Island was much creepier than the prospect of "yarr" and serrated shark teeth. I didn't know places like this existed at home. It was like for all the sunshine I had over the entire course of my life there was doom, gloom, torture room, death in full bloom, and vacuum for this place.

You know that smell of rottenness when you leave a bandage on too long over a wound? Take that and multiply the stink factor by twenty and spread that funk liberally over about a million square feet. Oh, and there was fog and darkness. Always need fog clinging to the cobblestone ground and the unexplainable darkness hanging in the air during the middle of the day. Mix all these ingredients in a blender and that's where I was. If being spooked by a place like that made me a coward then yes, Mr. Hero, I was a coward. However, with the directions leading to a place called "Dr. Finklestein's Lab", did I really expect anything different? The words "Finklestein", "Dr.", and "Lab" were all highly suspicious.

I left my poor, ocean-air-rusted car alone outside of the gate that led into a little town thing. That gate (very) squeakily swung open on its own. About half an hour after stepping through the gate and wandering in this wonderfully aberrant slice of heaven, I was about to lose my mind. This was a trap, I knew it, for Kairi to rid the world of one more Riku.

Soon enough, though, here was no need to continue such worries. Why? Because I saw a white piece of tissue floating in the middle of the air. A tissue—with eyes, a red nose, and… a smile.

"I'm crazy, right? Please say I am. I'll _pay_ you to say that I'm crazy."

The tissue made a loop in the air, making it the happiest tissue I'd ever seen (as opposed to all the sad, snot-ridden ones). If I really _was_ crazy then there was no harm in asking it directions, hmm? Why not?

It's daft that's why!

So I asked, "Do you know where the Doctor's lab is?"

Its nose glowed red and s/he/it floated off. I assumed I had to follow it. Follow the tissue. It ultimately led me to the door of a tall tower. When we stopped in front of it, the door burst open and three little kids ran past us. I turned to watch them disappear from view. Why did I fear those things running to their freedom? This was a good thing to add to the "Now I Know" list.

"Now I Know" item #3446: there are demon-masked "children" running free on the island. This is bad seeing that we are trapped on all sides by water. We must drown them.

"Lock, Shock, Barrel! Give that back!" I heard a voice yell. Great, I wondered what _this_ one looked like.

How ho-hum… a very tall skeleton man in a pinstriped suit. He ran past us and my tissue guide left me, floating off after PinStripe-SkeletonMan. Eh heh heh, silly me, hallucinating non-living things to life again. Did my last encounter with the talking toaster teach me nothing? Yes. Never trust a kitchen appliance.

With that moment of excitement over, I was back on my merry way. I looked through the opened door and saw something I'd describe as a "mysterious staircase". I climbed up and when I reached the top, it didn't surprise me that I almost jumped out of my skin. I saw a… a…

ZOMBIE DUCK IN A WHEELCHAIR. No kidding whatsoever, I swear on my pet Bluey the Goldfish's watery grave. I loved that fish therefore I am not joking.

"Excuse me, Dr. Finklestein?"

"What do you need?" he snapped, not looking up. He was examining some control panel, which looked like, quite honestly, a _broken_ control panel. I heard him grumbling something sounding 

like "_good-for-nothings_" under his breath. Wondered if he was talking about those kids I just saw… wait, scratch that. I wasn't there for that reason. Duh.

"I, um, you…" (You'd never guess I was having difficulty finding words.)

"If you found his place, it must be business," he said irritably, "Service for a Price."

So, this was a businessman… duck.

"Actually, I came to ask about someone."

"Confidential information remains _confidential_," he finally looked up at me from whatever he was doing.

Yikes. Why, Grandpa, what a cockamamie face you have. All the better to turn your knees into jelly, my dear.

"I need to know. Please. A girl named Kairi told me to come here."

"Hmmm, herI remember."

Yes! If he knew her then it meant I was in the right place. But no! Then this definitely affirmed that everything going on was deeper, bigger, and weirder than what I knew.

"She said you knew something about a person named Sora."

"Sora?" DuckMan's voice seemed interested (his voice was the only thing to gauge his emotion by because his face—forget it), "The troublesome one that Kairi brought in. Broke out and got away from me."

Ha, so this really was the "Doctor" of which Sora had spoken of and ha again, he just sealed himself to the fact that he and Kairi were involved with all of this strangeness with Sora. No room for denial now, the truth shall be mine!

"Sora told me about something like that. Breaking out, a doctor…" As I was saying that, it hit me: Sora was in _this_ place? Where? In a dungeon? And Kairi brought him here? How did she know about this crazy lab in the first place? Hell's bells, the things I wished I knew.

"Return Sora at once. You don't understand. It's incomplete."

Hit the nail on the head with that one. Mostly.

"Not an "it", a "him"_._ I think a majority of Sora's brain and memories are missing. Oh yeah, turns out he's a blood sucking vampire too. I'd call it abnormal but what do I know?"

"Blood sucking vampire, indeed. Life is more than blood."

That sounded a little familiar… "_more than blood_" …

"He's a parasite in more than one way. It's been too short a time for you to find out, maybe."

"_Parasite_?"

That's it, this duck had it coming to him. Whatever "it" was, I was sure it was going to be horrible—but wherever "it" was coming from it wasn't going to be from me because I was too busy getting the creeps.

" 'Parasite' is just a term, calm down. You haven't talked to the girl in depth, have you? " (Oh that banshee…!) "Now, if you return Sora to this place," Ducky McDeath returned to his sales pitch, "I will repay you with a free service. Need an extra appendage removed? Need one replaced?"

"What the… no!" That was slightly odd. No matter. "I won't even think about bringing Sora back here until you tell me what the hell it is you do around here _and_ what went on between you, Kairi, and Sora."

I was lying about bringing Sora, of course. I just needed to dangle the carrot in front of the horse or whatever kind of animal that eats carrots.

After a moment of thinking (where Finklestein flipped the top of his skull open, _scratched his brain_, and shut it closed again) he sighed, "I'm Dr. Finklestein. I run this lab to assist people with their less conventional problems. "Service for a Price" is my motto. As for Sora, follow me. You're more likely to believe the story if you see evidence."

Holy mackerel, this was it, and it was about freakin time. The answers to what I wanted to know—all I had to do was follow this guy through the twisty-turny interior of his homey (homely) lab. If my Impending Doom Radar hadn't been so suspiciously high, I'da been ecstatic.

"_Wait a second Riku, what's with the slight terror?_" you say?

First, some of the rooms we passed had the door left open. Second, I looked inside the rooms. What's so bad about that? Well, there were remnants of living things floating in jars and gutted bodies lying on tables. Third, what kind of bodies were they? Animals? Fourth, there were nothing but _ruins _left of the aforementioned former living things. For crying out loud! They'd been picked part like an Acura in da 'hood.

The tour came to an end when we stopped in front of a room. Not just any room but the kind that had a big window in one of the walls so you could look in. It was probably something like Plexiglas, the window I mean. There were some cracks in it, like someone threw something against it to try to break it. Looked like someone wanted out. Badly.

"This is the "evidence" of what went on here, huh? Seems like it can easily be faked. I believe you got a lot more s'plainin' to do. If you lie, I swear I'll tear your grimy little head off."

I was obviously going with the non-threatening approach.

Herr Doktor gave a thoughtful (theatrical) _hmmm_ before beginning, "Kairi came to me in total despair. Her request for ending it was the first of its kind. I originally planned to overlook it because it dealt with something I hardly knew. However, I accepted her challenge after realizing that price was no object. It's easy to see that Sora was very special to her. She was willing to give so much in order to get him back."

Details are helpful, people. That is why they exist, to be _helpful_. "Great for cheesy novel, yeah, but it's not funny trying to confuse me by starting in the middle like that."

"It's no laughing matter…umm, what was your name?"

"Riku."

"No laughing matter, Riku." His voice seemed to get interested again once he repeated my name, "By any chance would you be the same Riku that Sora was looking for?"

"How would I know?" (Besides the fact that Sora told me.)

"Perhaps it's some sort of psychic connection between you two. He'd say strange things referring to "_Riku_" when he was trying to escape. I honestly thought he'd gone crazy, he more than acted like it. You'd never guess how hard it was to subdue him during one of these fits. It's clear he was set on getting to where "Riku" was. Sorry to say, he obviously succeeded in breaking out. It's interesting to see that "_Riku_" is real."

Bzzt, wrong answer. Riku is not "interesting", but whoa, it turned out that I had part in this freak show and didn't know it. Psychic compulsion—when did _that_ happen? Who cares, gimme a high five anyway 'cause I rule. I was special after all.

"Well, I'm here in the flesh. Sora acts pretty normal around me. I've yet to see him go crazy." That was true because crazy and weird are different things, and man did I know what weird was. Sora was weird but not crazy.

"Riku was what he wanted and it was Riku that he found. Of course you haven't seen him go crazy. If he's near you there is no more reason for him go ballistic. He got to where he wanted to go."

"What would he want with me… or _from_ me?"

"You're guess is as good as mine—or maybe not." Ouch, put down. My apologies, Sir, I am not as smart as you are.

"Mind telling me why you went and threw him in here in the first place?"

"He's different. _He_ didn't know that but he didn't seem to know much of anything else either. After the revival he hardly recognized anything, not even the girl that'd saved him."

Blah blah blah. _Saved _him my ass.

"What do you mean, "revival"?"

"Sora wasted away. It was quite sad for the girl to watch."

Ha, I knew it. From the very beginning all signs pointed to Finkelstein being a crack head. Now I could confirm that he'd been snorting one too many lines of his own chemicals.

Sora's death is ludicrous.

Nonetheless, that duck helped me to get one thing straight: turned out that Kairi was a good actor…ess. Actress. Sora "disappeared" and she pretended she didn't know anything while having monkey business going on! Perhaps she and the Doc were really in on something but this story he was regurgitating was hilarious! I'd wring his miserable neck but I didn't want to upset the mad scientist, oh no.

"Don't joke around like that. Kairi, she… I mean, so Sora just wasted away? As in _death_? In _here_? When? Why?"

"The girl claims she doesn't remember what happened. They were somewhere outside when an immense darkness came over them. When she woke up he was basically a blob of human by her side. He didn't move at all, not to eat food or drink water, didn't close his eyes to sleep—he began to waste away. She knew what was coming and fortunately located me. However, the human body can last only for so long in that condition."

Why do people laugh, I ask? Why was I laughing? I guess it was just the kind of person I was, a fool.

"Ah ha ha… so you're saying he got possessed or something? She saw he was gonna die so she came in for one of your "services"? He wasted away in here and you brought him back because she made an offer you couldn't refuse," (impression of the Godfather movie applied there), "You kept him in here because he was some freak experiment but he broke out to get to where Riku was? Now you want me to bring him back here? You really are one funny mother duck-er!"

Wonder how the hell couldn't I come up with _that_ story! Perhaps I'm just unusually stupid.

"Go ahead and laugh. A lot of customers do. Among other things, they hide behind it."

"Hide? I never hide! Ok then, Mr. Run-of-the-mill-mad-scientist, what do you propose happened to make him a blob of human?"

Don't mistake this as me believing in what he said. I was just gonna milk the story to see how dumb he thought I was.

"Missing heart, most likely stolen as that darkness passed over them. It's not unheard of if you're wondering. Without the heart one cannot physically function, and with the spiritual center gone, there's nothing to recognize memories or emotion. Nothing to tell that person who he was. This is my explanation for his past craziness and current obliviousness."

"Wait a minute, you mean there's something going around stealing people's hearts? If Sora's heart was stolen, not implying that I believe an ounce of this, why didn't you hurry up to find it? Wasn't there enough money for you to speed it up a little and find it _before_ he needed revival?"

I could tell the doc was beginning to get real irritated with my denseness. But he started it! He deserved my meddling.

"To begin with, there are realities that are unknown to those who don't want to see them. Spirits, demons, possession—these are all real. Whether you want to believe or not, I speak of them because you wish to know what really happened to Sora. There are both benevolent and malevolent entities roaming out there. The malevolent darkness that Kairi spoke of is a type of demon that steals hearts. Rest assured that I did search for Sora's heart. It's a very difficult task. To know is not to understand."

So now I had to worry about demons, too. Lemme get my _Exorcism For Dummies_ book.

"Then why did you go through with any of it if you knew you couldn't do all of it right?"

"There is always the first step to be taken. Stop interrupting me."

"Go on."

"I would remind you that Rome wasn't built in a day. It takes time for research. I normally avoided these kinds of cases so I didn't have any prior research to fall back upon. However, Kairi's case was enough to prompt me into this unusual study. He was brought to me during his last days. The girl took too long to find me, he was very weak." Psh, yeah. "Difficulty or none, I follow through on all my work."

He obviously was still trying to make himself look good so I'd do what he wanted and bring Sora back.

"It's what I'd expect. Service for a Price," I said cynically.

"Everything has a price," Dr. What's-his-name said seriously.

"I plainly see that Sora's been _pricelessly_ sent up shit creek without a paddle but I still have questions. What about the vampire thing? How come after revival he could talk and eat and move around but he still doesn't have a heart? And the healing…"  


He cut me off before I could ask anything else, "It's too confusing for you," he said irately.

Yes! I was getting him angry! Me: 1, Doc: 1… million.

"Humans who suffered unnatural deaths, like dying with no heart as Sora did, have the capacity to become _vampires_. The living dead are really the _reanimated_ dead. They don't need hearts to survive but need to feed off the living—blood, breath, psychic energy, et cetera. I researched different kinds of vampire; I didn't want him to be only one kind. They all have weaknesses and I found strengths of some to cancel out weaknesses of the others. Mix and match, a _hybrid_, if you will. This was to ensure all the necessary things for survival while suffering minimal weaknesses. When time came for it, I give him the spark of reanimation. Still, nothing is perfect on the first try. The major weakness is that only human hosts will do, he cannot feed off animals. As for the healing, well, it's practical if he is forced to use the same living source over and over again."

Say, whose disgruntled laughter is bouncing around in the halls? Sounds familiar, oh wait, it's mine. This was all just too funny and unreal to digest. If I ever needed a good bedtime story, I'd definitely come here and ask for Uncle Duck for a good one. Pft.Morbid supernatural.

"So you're a friggin' saint, huh? That was _helping_? I mean…it—it goes against… The dead are dead no matter how they got there. They're meant to be dead and meant to rot, not to be brought back for money or for Kairi's stupid crying!"

Better be careful, Riku. If you talk like that you might believe what you're saying.

"He might've become a vampire anyway. Unnatural death, remember? It could be that I improved the conditions of his survival. Don't you want your friend around?"

"Dead people don't go around anywhere."

Great, now I was almost believing that Sora'd really wasted away. What the hell. If some mistaken part of my mind _did_ believe it, then what was I saying? That I'd rather have him dead than alive? No, but he was suffering. His suffering was… _mine._ All this gimme-your-body-or-I-will-die! couldn't be the best yearning Sora had to go through. Not only that, but I bet it sucked not to have any memories or even an identity. I know that I made a lot of smart ass remarks about his lack of brain but… it really made me feel empty.

If he were gone, none of this would matter. If he were gone, it'd only be because destiny places people where they're supposed to be. But which is destiny, dynamic or static? Is it what you make of it or is it written in stone? Most of all, when did I begin to believe in destiny anyway?

Haha… as if any of this was _real_. Couldn't be. I was probably back on my coach tripping off LSD. This was all one wonderful dream to teach me a wholesome after-school-program lesson so that when I got un-high I'd go tell Sora how much he meant. To me. You know, because I'd learned my lesson.

Yeah. One problem. Riku is delusional. Riku's reality is that he's in a lab and being lectured by a duck on how his best friend was murdered by demons.

Riku, you're such a useless clod of dirt. You can't even decide what you believe in.

"This vampire-ism-ness wouldn't be contagious now would it?" (Sarcasm is a good thing. It helps to deal.)

"No. I fixed that. "

Must. Control. Smart. Aleck. Tongue. Ahh, urge passed. But I must say that it was good to see he had a sense of conscience and saw no need for a legion of contagious hybrid vampires.

"Let's say I don't bring him back. How long does he have to live?"

"I'd rather you be wise and bring him back but he'll last as long as he can find human hosts."

In other words, until there was a mass human extinction, Sora would be re-alive and kickin'. Goddamn greenhouse effect and nuclear war, where are then when I need them?

"Who was he feeding off of when he was here?"

"That girl along with other various things—the liver is engorged with blood, did you know?" He gave a dry laugh, seeming satisfied with my typical human reaction known as disgust. It was like he was saying, "_Take that you nosy human! Concern for your friend has me flabbergasted!_"

Well, he got me. Me: 0, Doc: 1 million and 1. My stomach dropped several thousands of feet and disintegrated in the earth's magma. It didn't help to remember that Sora bit me with that same mouth. He bit Kairi with it, too, but that didn't make it any better.

When I stopped dry heaving and being an overall sissy, I asked, "So why should I bring him back if he can take care of himself?"

"There are still some issues with the heart to be worked out. The deal with Kairi is incomplete until we find his heart."

"So you'll put it back in? Unplug the vampire programs?"

Gasp, could this be a _good_ thing developing?

"Details of commissions are kept confidential. I've already spoken too much."

Fine. I see what happens when I get hopeful and it sure taught me. Lesson: never put hope on the bright side.

At any rate, now I understood what Finklestein meant by saying "_it_" was incomplete. And all this time I thought that Sora Ver. 1.0 was what needed to be completed! Turned out that it meant he was yet to make Sora Ver. 1.5: "New! Upgraded with Heart and the Deal is Complete!"

Damn, this was all insane. So insane, in fact, that it made sense. Realization always tended to bash me in the head like a startled bat out of hell. I finally realized that many of the fractured clues from before fit in with the story the doctor gave me.

"Now I understand all that weird stuff Sora was saying. He really _was_ with you since he was alive but not since he was born. You kept him in there and Kairi probably watched him from the same spot I'm standing now, from behind glass. His heart was gone and he couldn't remember anything, he wasn't the same Sora Kairi'd known… With no heart, why does he remember things when he's around me?"

I heard Ducky let out an "a-ha" and that got me suspicious.

"What's that mean?"

"Nothing. A bug flew in my eye. Continue your rant."

Bug, sure. I'da believed it if…if… Actually, I never would believe that. He was up to no good again.

"Seeing that Sora broke out before finishing the deal, it's too bad Kairi got ripped off. Not that you asked but I think that Sora's the one that's gypped. And, thanks, you've told me a lot I wanted to know. I'm grateful but step back and look at this mess. Damn _it_, damn _Kairi_, and damn _you_."

While I was at it, damn me too.

Ok maybe not. Damn no one. Life wasn't about blaming nor was it about running away anymore. I'd taken a roundabout way to learn that avoiding things tended to make them worse but I learned and that's my point. A fortune cookie coulda taught me the same lesson but on behalf of my defense, I'm a moron. I cry habeas corpus; you can't blame me for being stupid in the brain because there is no brain for stupidity to impose upon.

No more joking. Time to face the facts.

Facts: I hated everything I'd just heard… but no matter how much I hated it I couldn't deny that if none of this revival crap hadn't happened Sora woulda never broke out and found me. I never woulda come here and never woulda known what kind of unpleasantness can constitute a life. I didn't even know things like that could happen… that Sora's heart could be stolen.

Shit shit shit, that was a whole other can of worms. What was gonna happen to his heart? The Doc wasn't helping much therefore, so help me, I'd learn every black or white or whatever the 

hell kind of magic to get it back. If he was dead then he wouldn't need a heart, but he wasn't dead… anymore.

With me already this involved in Sora's destiny, there was no way his heart would remain captive or stolen under my watch.

So what does this mean class? Riku had a new mission: in order to find inner peace, he must protect all he had left. Our destiny and happiness are getting in the way of each other. Collision is inevitable. We are bound to fate! We are bound _by_ fate!

I decided to give my brain a rest for a while. Heavy duty thinking isn't a good thing to do sober, otherwise I made myself wonder 'bout some things.

"People say that certain things are difficult to accept, so I guess this sort of thing would be difficult for you. It will all go away after you bring him back."

Ugh, I was still there? I forgot to dramatically walk off.

"How about you find the heart first, give me a call, and _then_ I bring him back? He'll stay calm around me and he has the healing thing. Deal? Deal. See ya."

There's nothing more the say about that field trip. I knew the sledgehammer of reality would smash me one day so it'd be of no use to complain about how strange the truth was. This day was as good as any other to learn about the messed up world and about messed up feelings.

Alas, all was not left to despair. I still had time. Time to figure things out, time to share, and time to think about everything over a cup of cold water and 1.5g of potassium cyanide.

* * *

AN: Yip yip yahoo slap. Thanks for your time! I kid you not.


	8. 8

AN: Hey! I just saw the digital clock say BEE and realized it was upside down and that it's 3:38. Wonder how long it's been upside down.

* * *

-8-

Answers are strange. People are strange, as is life, and I was baffled. Can I get an "_Amen_"? Or at least a "_Duhhh…_"? Knowing the things that I knew now, things would always never be the same. If that wasn't not disadvantageous then I don't know what's not isn't is.

Was it common sense or fascism to wanna have things evolve into a utopia? Was it crooked to wanna be as happy as a necro in a morgue or a tapeworm wound in every abdominal nook and cranny? Was it too much to know everything about everything and use that info to plan strategery against things you know will be detrimental? Can anything be "trimental" if things can be _de_trimental? Speaking of mental, who's the mental one around here? Was everyone else smoking crack or was I the only one not smoking enough? Is it Friday the thirteenth everyday now?

Those questions, along with many others I had along the same line, would never be answered. Why? They're just… just… I dunno, maybe I shoulda asked a Magic 8 ball. On the other hand, mayhap what I was asking had no meaning in the first place and therefore had no answer. Then who put those thoughts in there? Miniscule demon spawn? The neighbor's cat? Yo' mama is more like it. Lord save me, I made a funny.

But know what? It seemed to me that the idea of perfection turned out to only make sense when I was making fun of it. Some ideas obviously have no real life application, like everything I learned in recess. You can't rub someone's face in the tanbark if they steal your turn on the swing.

A perfect ending… haven't all of us bipedal human creatures tried for one? It's no new story. Too bad you realize that sometimes you prefer the act of questioning over dealing with imperfect, harmful answer because, hey, life is funny. Doesn't mean you don't want the answer, though. You just wish that there were a better one out there.

Great. This was turning as heartwarming as the story of the cannibal who dumped his girlfriend (think about that one). But for now, I'd better pay attention to driving home. Damn dog running across the street, you'd think it'd know better than to come looking for an invitation to French kiss the asphalt. Bet the old me woulda wished that I were that dog. Thinking that I'd be better off licking my ass thinking it's chocolate cake. Asking dumb stuff like "mindless bliss, where art thou?"

I am better off than that dog.

Not really.

At that moment, I was doing anything to be distracted. Trying to find a mindless bliss to take me away from… from here. Wherever _here _was. Destiny Island, I don't know you anymore. Island? I had no island! I had a sly, two-faced paradise that hid its secretively secret secrets. That applied to Kairi, too. Just replace the word _paradise_ with _banshee_. I'm usually above calling names but you tape some feathers and talons on her and tell me she _isn't_ a banshee. It's like getting the plague and not laughing about it. Don't get me started on that Doctor Finklestein duck guy I'd just met. Some creatures should feel what Wile E. Coyote feels when he's falling a gazillion feet off a cliff: sheer and comical terror.

Saboteurs. All of them. I'd show them, I'd show them all. They'd feel the hurt, that much was true and certain.

Man was I fired up! And going nuts.

However, the most important thing to keep in mind was the fact that Sora was frikkin screwed. I could bitch to myself all the livelong day, but then what? What was gonna happen now? What was I gonna do? Should I do anything at all? I was out of ideas. I mean, c'mon, they don't teach this stuff in school. Unless they do, then I really _was_ wasting my time and money at that worthless college.

This, haha, was a severe case of the laughs taking over again 'cause, ha, this couldn't be all that was left of my life. The splatter marks left after shit hit the fan…stressed and confused/struggling—conf-uggling… no, this was not my life. On top of everything else, I was beginning to feel the same kind of "depression" I got when I set up extra places at the table and, oh yeah, I remembered that I was alone that night. The emptiness, man. The void. Forever the infinitesimal-ality.

Living in an illusion _is_ an illusion. I won't try. Anymore. In this world you can't live in a gilded bubble, especially when you wanna help someone. I had a feeling of… just… I just wanted help my friends. What was so hard to understand about that?

Of all the things I felt on that drive home, I think that one feeling in particular prevailed to wake me up to reality. It was the feeling of the seat belt cutting across my throat because, damn it, I said pay attention to driving! Accursed red light. "Check me out in my circular, primary colored glory" it says and I'm like, "No". Worse than a shame, Officer, sir. The super thick glaze over my eyes is hard to see through. No, I won't let it happen again and, no, thank _you_.

Ok, so there was no officer.

I had to be careful. What help would I be if I turned up dead? A smidgen less than zero. No one's gonna bring me back, I am alone, sob. I mean, no one's gonna bring you back, you S.O.B., because you're alone. BUT! If I was as selfish as I thought I was, I wouldn't let myself die until I got mine—and what was mine also belonged to someone whose name rhymed with "Flora".

In this case, Sora's heart was "mine". Really. No foolin'. Funny that it ended up missing. No worries, I was gonna find it somewheeeere over the rainbow.

As far as immediate plans went, I wanted to get home and sleep everything away for a minute. I was completely drained, and reality was beginning to fledge into a nightmare. Wish I could pull the old switcheroo between consciousness and unconsciousness. I'd much rather dream a nightmare than live one, much rather live a dream the just dream one.

Pst, hey, Riku, sorry to interrupt you, but do you know that you're idling on the driveway? As of five minutes ago you arrived home and as of ten minutes ago you've officially become a mind-drifting dumbass.

Shows how much you know. Thought you knew me, didn't you, Riku? I've been a dumbass ever since—hey, upon closer inspection, this particular driveway, the way the mailbox was situated, and the numbers on the house all pointed one thing: I really was home. Don't that beat all. Made it back alive. Bet you wouldn't expect that any more than you'd expect to see me in a beige colored Speedo.

* * *

I know everyone's said this before, but I really wished that my pillow were a marshmallow. I wouldn't mind stickiness in my hair if I were to drool, especially if were to drool hot cocoa. Unfortunately, in reality, where I exist, there were no pillows anywhere within my vicinity. My hot and sticky dream (talkin' 'bout my marshmallow and cocoa here) ended when someone very nosy turned me over onto my back.

"Riku."

"Can't you see I'm sleeping."

"Face down on the floor?"

Hmm. Upon even _more_ closer inspection…

"Hardwood is very comfortable."

Pain flooding senses—seeing, tasting, smelling _pain_! I didn't remember walking into the house nor did I remember missing the whole couch when lying down to go to sleep. Good thing I missed the coffee table. Didn't need a table corner transplanted into my eye socket. Better leave that to a specialist, a foreign-body-embedded-in-your-eye-ologist.

"I heard you walk in ten minutes ago, then a thud on the floor."

"Didn't know the sound of facial bones breaking could travel so far," I stood up and, ha ha, the room can do some amazing tricks. The ceiling was alive with stars. I rubbed my forehead, debating whether or not the gray matter contained behind it might actually be a ball of duct tape.

How embarrASSing, "You waited ten minutes to check?"

"Well…"

"Kidding. Guess I was really tired… kinda keeled over… y'know…" I made a funny sound effect (it was funny to me, anyway) and a gesticulation to reenact the event. The audience was not responsive that day.

Hmm….mmm…umm… Tired.

I shook off that sleepiness and pain; back to business. As long as there was an awkward silence and as long as what I'd learned that day was fresh in my mind, no time like the present to face Chopin's opus 25 etude 12 (i.e. music).

How to start?

_"My hobby is appreciating pointy rocks at the edge of the ocean and the waves that send me crashing into them. What do you like?"_ I should say.

_"I like—"_ he'd begin to say.

_"What an insane waste of time!" _I'd interrupt,_ "I think you should invest in daisies."_

_"Daisies?"_ he'd have no option other than to be confused.

_"You tell me: isn't pushing them up easy from six feet under?"_

Naw. Lame, maybe?

"Hey, what's wrong?" My train of thought derailed when I saw that Sora had one of those shadowy looks on his face. He was all huffy, inhaling sharply like he was gonna…cry. Not cry in a loud way but a quietly suffering sort of way.

My focus changed in a snap (crackle, pop). My heart sank faster than my dream of being a world-champion badminton player after suggesting a few orifices Coach could shove the shuttlecock (he was asking for it).

"Shed one tear in this house, it's game over."

I hate seeing people on the brink of tears because I know it's my fault somehow. What does that say about me? It might be called a "lack of tact" on my part. But it's not badass to make someone cry. I only go ape-man as situations warrant. Sora didn't do anything so I couldn't have _purposely_ done something to make him bawl.

What I _did_ know was that I couldn't stand to see him blubbering. I'd done some dumb things before and wanted to avoid that kind of stuff for the rest of forever.

"What is it?"

What does Sora do when I demand a direct answer? Flounders around a bit for show, he does. Reminds me of me, but very unlike me, when Sora couldn't yet find words, he just put his face right up to mine as if it was supposed to mean something. I can't put my face up to my own unless I have a mirror, and I'm not that much of a Narcissist (or so I claim). This was like earlier that morning when he was all up in my face and said "more than blood", except this time his breathing was more laborious. Having a flashback of the things that mouth had done, I was very glad to find that his breath didn't smell like rotten death. How do you give the clue of "hey, you slightly reek of zombie filth" without being offensive? Good thing he smelled like nothing, which is my favorite scent. Eau de nothing. In fact, I think nothing is my favorite flavor for everything.

Sora finally found his words, and those words hit me in the face when he softly spoke, "A fish out of water… do you know the feeling?"

Gee, wonder what this would lead to. "No, but I heard that sharks might let go of your leg if you jab their eyes."

That's right, Riku, keep it frosty. You're not implying that you're gonna gouge Sora's eyes out, are you?

Of course not, 'twas for his information is all.

"Fish need water to breathe. I need _you_ to breathe…"

Slick. "I. Am. Breathing."

Liar. I was holding my breath like something that holds its breath a lot. A whale does, so I guess an appropriate simile would be that I was holding my breath like a whale. Well, duh. Other people's faces in close proximity to mine led to me being weirded out.

All this hot, heavy breath rolling off my skin caused the Hidden Tiger Sleeping Dragon programs to ask for permission to activate.

No, I said, I'm tired! Also, I didn't know I was bi. Yet what other response would my body have to all this sudden nearness of someone else's heat? It's not me, it's the heat.

Even so with all this unpleasantness, why did I not expect this? Even the Doc _it_self said that Sora fed off breath, that Sora was a "parasite in more than one way". What other way to get what he needed than getting close to the food source, a.k.a. me? Now that I'd made him wait for me to come back from gallivanting around the island this hunger was worse than before, hence his gasping.

Man was I relieved, I knew he couldn't be so brazen to come up to me in any, ahem, salacious way, hack, cough. He was only about to devour my soul, I mean, breath. I'm sure it didn't matter that he was buttering me up in the process, making me forget that I was slightly hating him for what he was about to do. He was only trying to live, which is a component bundled in all living things.

Oh well. At least he was only feeding off breath that time. It seemed completely useless to me but what do I know? It wasn't like I needed my exhaled breath anyway so I guess I wasn't sacrificing much to let him have it. Not like blood, where the insertion of teeth through bodily membranes.

I quickly decided I didn't like this any more than I liked the other thing he did.

Every time he inhaled, all the air rushed outta my chest. Kinda like reverse drowning. Nothing was going in my lungs but something was being sucked the hell out. It wasn't just carbon dioxide he was taking in as if he were some tree. It was probably my magical juju mojo aura of life force energy (I talk nerdy, too).

When he moved back, I saw that the shadowy, tired look was gone. I, being too nice to just push him away, ended up hitting a new stage of tiredness… it could only mean success. My head felt light as an anorexic feather while the rest of my body felt like (beautifully crafted, perfectly chiseled) lead. My eyes watered andfelt like they'd been scrubbed with broken glass.

Ha…glass lead feather… that would sink if you put it on water…

…

…so tired…

… I bet it wasn't anything some barbiturates and a polo mallet couldn't cure.

In your face, Couch, I made it that time. No more hardwood diving for me.

Some sort of clear, ocular fluid coated my stinging eyes and made it seem like Sora's face was glowing as he stood over me. Blearily lustrous in the noon light coming through the window. A warm sight, if my eyes were able to feel emotion. I could be happy, I thought, not worrying about the story behind everything that I saw. Sora could be that light and I could like it all I wanted without thinking about why.

That thought was disregarded after a split second. Nothing's that easy.

"Don't heal me. I just wanna sleep," I said when I saw Sora's hands closing in for the kill.

Soon I saw a little less of the light, a little less of his face, and then it was dark… that sweet dark limbo predecessor to slumber. Believe me, if I remember falling asleep in such detail then it was a very important event. I'd never ever felt that grateful to sleep because I'd _never _felt every fiber of my body wanna call it quits. That even includes the time my friends Tidus and Wakka tried to teach me how to play Blitzball.

I hoped for a sleep as black as sin, meaning I would have no dream, or much less popular, a replay of everything I'd learned and saw earlier at the Lab.

"I better not wake up dead," I managed to say before completely falling asleep.

I'd felt a pain on my wrist and then soft suction at the wound. So he was sucking blood from my wrist… What was he, sadistic or something? Trying to kill me or something? Something or something? You don't be slicing and sucking people's wrists, it's an ostensible courtesy. Unless, of course, you're Sora and I'm me. I even forgot about all the cooties that were no doubt swimming inside him. Eating people's livers and sucking Kairi's neck. Lurch away, stomach, lurch.

Why can't I be disgusted with you, Sora? If you remember things when you're near me, why are you not freaking out about the things you did or the things _they __**did **__**to **__**YOU**_?

There is a method of getting over things like that, though. It's called "_lighten up_".

Lighten up, Riku, you yourself aren't so clean. How's it he's not disgusted with _you_?

* * *

AN: ...or as I call him, Pimpafied Riku Silk Schmoove Shizzle.

Hear about the guy in the Tigger suit that's supposedly been groping people? That's not a set up to a joke. A Tigger groping people! What a world.


	9. 9

AN: Dumb computer, giving me all kinds of grief. First refusing to marry me, then disconnecting the Internet and restarting itself a million times because the lsass.exe terminating unexpectedly with status code 1073741819 with the NTAUTHORITYSYSTEM initiating shutdown. What that means? I got that stupid Sasser computer worm. I'd stab it if I could. But I can't. So I won't.

It quite turns to simpering, I think, from the last chapter forward.

* * *

-9-

The most beautiful dream was shoved down my craw. It was a spiraling vision of memories passed—a metaphorical Technicolor tsunami of my former happiness crashing down on me. Strangulating me with all its happiness-fueled might and wringing tears out of my dementedly jovial dream-self's eyes. A regular broken-hearted rhapsody, that's what it was, with nothing to dry my tears but the cold breeze created by the angels as they flapped away. And also, a giant flying mushroom.

Alright, that's the last straw, the mushroom must never abandon me! Where's the manager of this sucky dream?

Here I am, may I help you?

That's right, you bizarre weirdo. That's right.

Then, in a rage of instantaneous _maaagic_, all my nostalgic visions faded away in a transition smoother than a car deftly gliding over a moose. Damn effing right they did. Everything marred into shapeless-ness—like when you're taking a shower at night and the electricity goes out (and, ahh, the label "tear free shampoo" lied). That was the beautiful part of my flashback-laden reverie: when it drained away. It's what I'd wanted in the first place, a sleep as black as sin. That meant no dreams, no visions, no floating visages, no prophecies, _or_ flashbacks. So get out of my fakking head, all of you!

However, it's one thing to have no dream but it's another to have a non-dream. I was left with a non-dream. A "_non_-dream"? It's what I call when you're asleep, you're aware that you're asleep, but you can't move or wake up. Smart people might wanna call that sleep paralysis. Since I'm a "smart people" and I didn't call it that, well, then, there you go. It's different from that. Non-dreams made me feel total _nothingness_, the same thing a raindrop falling and feathering away into the sea must feel. Oh, look at me, I'm a sad raindrop. (Imagine a raindrop crying. It'd just be a drop of water with another drop of water on it!)

It's bad to feel bad but it's badder, I mean, _worse_ to feel nothing at all. To think and therefore be, but to be in the state of nothing where you might as well have not been at all. And other crap like that. That's what made non-dreams suck. And choke. Hard. You've heard of your mind being your own prison, right? As lame as it is, it's still lame. And true. I just wanted to wake up from that unnatural feeling.

Wake up? Sure, you know, 'cause things around here just that easy. There's always gotta be some vision that foreshadows something major. That's always part of a story's formula. As for me, it was almost like that but not really. All I heard was a voice rattle around in my head.

_"This darkness, it's the same… what I feel… memories are gone, I can't see." _

Now, which doofus could that voice belong to? Why, to Sora, of course! To the only guy that knew I ate cereal with water.

So, you're telling me, Sora, this "_darkness_" is "_the same_"? That it's "_what you feel_" because your "_memories are gone_"? Feels like you're in what I call a non-dream? Wanting to get away from the nothingness, to open your eyes from the darkness to the reality that's just on the other side of your closed eyes. It's not just literal, is it? I _know_ this has to do with your missing heart, Sora, the cold dreams and nothingness and forgetfulness and darkness you feel…

While we're at it, let's think about all the yipping, starving little puppies that have no home. Fat boo hoo.

MeloDrama Mode: OFF

The real spooky part is that even in my _dream_ he was with me.

Next on the schedule was to dream about falling. Sorta like Alice in Wonderland, except for the landing unharmed on the floor and having the whimsical experience of a lifetime part. Instead, I was startled awake the moment the "ground" jarred my spine. I tore apart my eyelids and sat up hastily in typical waking-from-a-nightmare fashion. A nonsensical voice flopped around in my ears but that was ok because it shut up the moment I closed my mouth. Stupid voice.

"Peculiar," I thought. What was I doing on the couch?

Oh yeah. After some stealing-my-breathing snafu with Sora, I fell over like ton of bricks or some other pile of similarly heavy things.

When everything else in my head settled down, I was left listening to rain hitting the house. I felt a kind of tingling on my forehead which was reminiscent of when I get a mosquito bite… and then someone smashing a bottle over that mosquito bite. Ow, damn it. It didn't make me feel better to see Sora standing beside me with a hand over his mouth, a white glow fading underneath his palm. Healing himself was he…?

He rubbed at his mouth before he wiped his hand on his clothes. Who wipes his hands on his clothes, a five-year-old? Me last week? Plus, those were _my_ clothes he was wearing. Plus again, he was wiping blood on them. Blood on my clothes again!

Hmm, pain-ing forehead and blood on his mouth?

"You…you weren't _biting my forehead_, were you?!"

I instinctively touched my forehead to feel for a wound. Of course there wouldn't be one, that sneaky White Light Devil.

"I wasn't biting you," (man, to hear those words),"It's your third eye—"

He went on trying to explain, with plenty of "umm" and "uh" thrown in. For as long as it took, it was a pretty scanty explanation. It was creepy to see that he wasn't joking around (not that he did much of that anymore these days).

This "third eye" exists somewhere on the forehead, he said. We've all got 'em, this third eye, and it's a good place for energy to be drained from. Therefore, ta-da! We've cornered the perpetrator that sucked the color out of my visions, leaving me with the lights out. Eating my dreams like so many termites attacking a pirate's splintery wooden eye. I knew a non-dream couldn't happen on its own, it was just too weird and unnatural to feel that much of _nothingness_. It'd only happen when he drained my dream energy. This sort of feeding was different than the other kinds; it didn't make me tired, it made me feel hollow. Right-o. Great-o.

Sora'd been psy-feeding off me _through_ my forehead (!), no blood involved, and had his face real close to mine. I'd busted his lip when I bolted upward, which explains the blood spurting through _his_ skin for once. I'd say oops, feel bad, and apologize but he was asking for it when he put himself in that position. Not that I've seen him in any other _positions_, eh? Eh!

Eh…? What was I thinking about? Insinuations are bad. Let's all save our blood-engorged facial capillaries (blushing) for some other time.

…hey, wait a second, that brings to mind…

"You can't hear my thoughts can you?"

With him being all psychic-y, devouring my dreams and all, I suddenly kinda worried if he could hear my thoughts too—'cause if he could, oh boy…

"Hear thoughts? What am I, a freak?"

Ok, I made up the "_what am I, a freak"_ part. He'd actually started to say something akin to, "I can feel what you feel without having to hear your thoughts".

I already kinda knew that about him so I found a tasteful way to discontinue this blah blah blah. I call it "shut up". This sort of stuff is kinda embarrassing to know, much more to hear, and a lot weirder to try to figure out. But I guess if it came down to this level of, ahem, _familiarity_ between us, then I'd just have to get used to every aspect of that closeness. This wasn't just a physical thing but a mental thing too. Nothing about me would be entirely my own as long as he was around. Kinda like tapping a keg of _The Circle of Life_.

But I had a slight problem. Blood, breath, dreams, what next? It's like a harvest over here. Am I a tomato? No, so I'd prefer _not_ to be eaten. Of course I wanted Sora to remain reanimated but I hated _how_ he had to do it. It's, how do you say? Ah, yes, a _necessary evil_. Aside from keeping him alive, I also wanted to avoid any possible starvation-crazed conduct, such as going borderline stark raving mad. Or starting a rampage. I think a famished Sora could verily break out … then some other square was in for trouble when Sora got da munchies. A vampire on the loose would be a magnet for all sorts of funny trouble. Not funny "yuk-yuk" but funny "I want my mama but you ate her!" kind of funny. Just like how the people at the market two days ago probably thought it was hilarious when Sora was out of his mind and assaulted someone with his teeth and causing that human mini-stampede. Oh crap, that was in public, there was bound to be something about it in the news and newspaper… better not think about it…

Escaping _that_ thread of meandering thoughts, I saw that Sora had turned his attention to looking out a window. Wondering if it was as fun as he made it seem, I took a glance. Imagine a completely gray sky. Imagine a window smeared with rain. That's what we were staring at. Gray clouds masking out the sky. And rain. Not the _most_ fun I've ever had but pretty damn close. It was uncannily similar to sitting through one of Gramp's "I-remember-when" stories. It was enough to make me wanna fall back asleep but with that last sleep I had, heh, no thanks.

"What time is it?" I asked, wondering how many hours I _did_ get to sleep.

"Time?" Sora looked over and pointed at me. Blatantly at my wristwatch. Oh shut up, Sora.

"Since you asked, it seems to be around four, smart guy."

I knew I came home around noon, so that added up to me sleeping at most four hours. F-o-u-r. They go by fast when you're rapt in fulfilling, _peaceful_ sleep after being awake for two days prior. Gawd Riku, you always gotta complain, you nickel-minus-four-cents gigolo.

Oh, _really_. That hit was below the belt, so low I got shattered foot-fingers. Toes.

_Excuse me_, then, that I was more than slightly cantankerous and tired. Hot people (like me) are notorious for short fuses if deprived of beauty sleep. Am I right or am I right? I'm right but I'm kidding. But there's no time to kid! Becoming all-you-can-eat buffet and having some brain issues distracted me a little but that didn't mean I could totally deviate from the mystery at hand. Scooby Doo and Shaggy would spin in their graves.

"Listen Sora. A lot of things have been bothering me about what's been going on so sit down and pay attention. No, I mean it, sit down. You haven't been talking, thinking, or making sense but I want you to multi-task and do them all at once. Got it?"

I decided to interpret his blank stare as an enthusiastic "_yes_". So translated, Sora responded with a resounding, "_Yes!_"

Now that I had his cooperation, where to start? So many questions. There really wasn't much of a beginning for me to begin from so let's work backwards and see where that goes, shall we? Why am I asking permission? I'll do what I damn well please!

Ok, let's see, looking backwards the most recent weirdness would be… that message from my non-dream.

"Something tells me that you _sent_ a message into my dream, something about darkness and memories…" just thinking about it again made it feel like there was cold water going down my back, tingly and not in the good way. "Other than that being weird as hell, you also said something about darkness before—like when it's gone, you can feel and remember things. What's it supposed to mean?"

"It means—" Sora eyes wandered back to the window again as he responded.

"Look at me when you talk. And don't think saying "it means what it means" counts."

Ha, I nipped that one in the bud. Sora had to think for a minute or two or ten for a different answer.

"It won't mean what it doesn't."

Wise guy.

"I'm going to understand all of this no matter how long it takes. You told me yesterday that with the darkness gone, you could remember things. How? Where's the darkness from? Why's it there? How do you know about it?"

"Darkness hides, Riku. That's all there is to understand."

I waited for the rest of the explanation. There was none. Never can be overdrawn at Sora's Data Bank, can we? This nebulous logic wasn't cutting it.

"How do you _know_ that? I mean, c'mon. At least be specific when you're being vague. Is darkness hiding_ from_ something else or is darkness hiding _something _from something else? Is it literal or symbolic…or…?"

"All of those? I dunno," there was a little bit of objection in his voice now, "I can't explain. Some things I can't explain with words."

Hark, the convenient excuse, "_there aren't any words._" But he could bring up that message I said I got in my sleep. I knew I didn't just dream it, it really was his voice, but it wasn't by the words that I knew it was Sora speaking to me. I could _feel_ it.

So I guess he was right. About time he got one, this "there are no words" deal.

"Whatever it is, it is what it is, isn't it Sora?"

We'd started off so well, then we opened our mouths. I might as well have been asking for directions to Sesame Street from a doorknob. _This _doorknob I was talking to concentrated too much on staring out the window. It didn't seem like he was looking away for eye contact avoidance purposes, though. This Q&A session was as fruitless as my diet of salt and granulated sugar. A few lugnuts short of trail mix, the both of us, but what else should I have expected? Me asking questions to a doorknob with eyes?

News flash: Forget it. Why milk snake poison if the snake you caught isn't poisonous? I couldn't milk rational answers from Sor-anaconda. I'd hafta figure this one solo. It's little known that "Riku" in Riku-nese, means "Super Genius Stud." By George I was gonna live up to my name.

Ready?

Ok…ok…

Fact 1: Sora said that when I'm near, he could remember things. Half true seeing that he had lapses of amnesia, not a total revival of knowing what'd happened to him or much of anything else.

Fact 2: He also said something about memories residing in the heart. It sounded strange for him to say such a thing when he had only half his wits about him but there was one Dr. Finkelstein I'd conversed with mere hours ago that claimed the same thing. (But does two halfwits saying one thing make the whole truth? Zing!)

Fact 3: Mr. Brunette Blue-Eyed Sunshine didn't have a heart, that knowledge also gleaned from The Fink. It still wasn't easy to believe, or even say, but it made sense to believe so. This plus Fact 2 resulted in Sora's forgetfulness.

Fact 3: Dorky-ness, I mean, darkness hides. Either hiding itself or hiding something from something else. Since I had only a vague idea of what this crap really was, it's a fact only because the concept was all over the place.

Fact 4: I quote, "_when the darkness is gone, I can feel and remember things._" Spooky that I can remember word for word, huh?

Fact 5: Yesterday (that was only yesterday?), Sora recalled the cherished childhood inside joke of Wakka's bento ('cause get it? It sounds like "bent toe" and if you have a pair of pliers in your hand…). Logical to say that at that point, some of the darkness had gone because he'd been able to remember that.

Fact 6: There was some warmth in my chest that night, too. I'd never felt anything like it.

Conclusion: 2 plus 2 equals the opposite of sense.

As the tree said to the lumberjack, I'm stumped. After wrapping my brain around The Facts a few (dozen) times, the answer still remained slippery as a banana peel on lubricated ice.

Hmm, there had to be more facts out there. Could I have been misinformed, or worse, _duped_?

A string of obscenities later, and Sora giving me sideways glances that probably meant "Tsk, tsk. Pity, pity," it hit me. An idea half knocked my brain out of my ears. Despite my insecurities over their soundness, the Facts added up and managed to make semi-sense. I muttered the profoundest of all words.

_"Shiiiiiiiiit."_

See how many "i"s there are? That conveys the undiminished magnitude of that word.

"If darkness hides, then can't it hide memories? That could be what's keeping your memories from you. Your heart is in darkness. And if the heart holds memories and you can remember things when you're near me, then your heart could be near me… but that isn't enough to remember everything, so there must be darkness… in me? But it can go away, right? You said so before—I think it depended on how I, um…_felt_. Like that warmth I had. That is, if your heart really is near me and the "darkness"… is gone when I feel warmth…um… of light."

That idea sounded a lot smarter in my brain. Out loud, it was just too rich and I had to laugh. Or better yet, scoff. _Scoff!_ Plot holes abounded. How did _I_ remember things if there was darkness in me and darkness hides memories?

"Near you, my heart…?"

Oops, maybe he didn't exactly know that he had no heart?

"What I meant… it's a metaphor. 'Cause we're friends. Aristotle said friends are a single soul dwelling in two bodies." You can't argue with a dead philosopher guy, because, you know… he's smart _and _dead. Yep, we're friends."

Ha ha, I kill me. Can't predict what'll come outta my mouth next. Jumanji! See? And I was lying before about the meaning of my name. "Riku" in Riku-nese seems to mean "Erratic," I lived up to that plenty. It's easier to run away from awkwardness than it is to ride it out.

"Well, interrogation's over! Let's eat. Good idea," I sprang up off the couch and went into the kitchen. I wasn't in much condition to spring/sprang/sprung, though. Dizzy City.

The weirdo followed me into the kitchen and above the clinking of everything I was doing, I heard him say, "You're not telling me—"

"—something," I finished his sentence. "I know you know, but I don't care that you don't… know," and I went back to burning the boiling water.

Mmm, wonder what it'd be like to dunk my head into boiling water. It'd hurt but then, yum, face soup. Silver hair makes for a good garnish on everything, wink, wink.

"Hungry?"

"No."

Huh.

I sat down to enjoy my kim chee flavored instant ramen but it didn't taste so good (but did kim chee _ever_ taste good?) when Sora seated himself across the table from me. And stared. It sucked the spit out of my mouth, made my throat into sandpaper, him staring at my pug-fugly mug for that long. He was using his eyes to accuse me of something, a silent siege.

For the million-trillionth time, I asked, "What is it?"

Sora seemed unsure of what to say, but that was just me misreading his face, "Remember the things you told me yesterday night?"

"Yeah." Mmm, uh huh, hmm… yah. Me saying "_I want you to be happy_", "_trust that I'll find a way for you_" and such festive things to him yesterday was like a skunk's stink. I couldn't remember to forget it.

"You meant what you said."

"Of course I did."

"It made me feel like I could wake up, from a cold dream. Know what I mean?"

Wake up? Cold dream? Besides sounding lame, those words felt like stones in my gut. Gut stones. More like gut boulders. They reminded me of my non-dream thing. I remembered Sora's voice telling me in my sleep that he felt like he was living in a non-dream. Wanting to get away from the nothingness, to open his eyes to the reality that's just on the other side of this darkness, to his memories and who he used to be. It wasn't just literal, waking up…

"Well, yesterday I felt warmth in my chest, near my heart. Maybe that's what woke you up from your "cold dream". Because… warm versus cold, they make lukewarm."

I had _no_ idea what I was talking about. Do I ever?

"I want to wake up in a place I know," Sora went on _as if I knew_ what the hell we were talking about_. _The pitiful inkling of hope in his face faded soon enough.

I was choking, if not only on my spit then on some tears too, "That's corny and you know it." But it still made my heart kinda twinge. I felt a little bad for my smart ass-ery.

After a bit of well-placed silence, Sora's hollow eyes went back to staring out a kitchen window to the rain outside. This wasn't to avoid looking at me, this I _knew_. I'll have a "_Great_!" with a side order of "_Sarcasm_". So far, anything Sora hinted at brought with it mighty repercussions I was wholly unprepared for. This darkness and memory thing was bad enough but his search for the invisible something told me that more trouble was a-brewin'. It was an endless clown car, but except having a car there was Sora and except having clowns it was problems and mysteries. It was pushing me towards that first step beyond lunacy.

What, oh,_ what_ could possibly be coming?

Would it lead to more trouble than Sora was worth?

Who'd ask that last question? You? You? You, the hoofed and horned one with a pitchfork in hand! "More trouble than Sora was worth". Psh. It'd be easier to bail but that's what I call an "asshole that deserves less than to shit". I was gonna meddle in this until the end because what's so damn hard to understand about wanting to meddle? Especially if you missed the first chance to, how do you throw away a second chance that's given to you with borrowed time?

But I digress.

"Hey."

"What."

"Chicken butt."

Haha. Nerves.

"I mean, even if it doesn't look it, I'm glad you're here. We lost you once before but now you're the only thing I have left, so you better believe that I wanna protect you. The stupid things I say, well, you can—"

Didn't seem like he was listening so intently. He was still rather busy watching the rain. Why wouldn't he look at me? What's he got, a hydro-fetish? A splash fixation? Did I have to jump in a pool so I'd be wet enough to look at?

"—ignore them…" I trailed off.

Trailing off: the telltale sign no one's listening. Precipitation, you have won his attention. For now.

"Know why it's raining?"

What? Talk about off the wall (and I do). What'd that have to do with anything? Who cared why it was raining?

I did. Only because he asked me to.

"Why?"

* * *

AN: Some answers questioned and some questions answered.

Advice of No Use: if you eat Key Lime pie, don't order Sprite with it because then the Sprite will just taste like water.


	10. 10

AN: Craziness, man, beyond belief. It put me in the Land of Eternal _Bah_!. ( o )

And Riku's hair is a slip of the scissors away from being a mullet. Just thought I'd point it out.

==========

10

True that I'd given an unadulterated _damn_ when Sora asked me if I knew why it was raining, but why'd he ask me such a thing? No one that took 2nd grade science asks why it rains; this had to be segueing into something weird. The _real_ question was what sort of rare gems would be falling out of Sora's mouth this time. Better not be anything about 'darkness' because trying to figure out that crap was like feeding me poison through an IV drip stuck directly to my cerebellum. Acid poison. Corrosive acid poison.

'_Know why it's raining?_' indeed. I was on to him; he couldn't make me fall into a trap that didn't exist, no 'senses lulled into false security' for me. Just as Kairi's 'you don't look good in turtlenecks' meant 'vampire on the loose,' 'know why it's raining' probably meant 'hope you're flexible—because it's time to kiss your ass good-bye.'

Shi'yat. I presupposed that ass assassination via weapons of mass ass destruction was a lot less fun than popping bubblewrap. Still, no matter how tightly people cling onto the idea of remaining flesh-ified, unless they're cremated, no one's above letting their Thrones of Dirt cradle their worm riddled tissue. Just lookit that Sora guy. Anything can happen. He was post post-mortem. Sora The Amazing Backwards Pinocchio (S.T.A.B. Pinocchio for short), as I never called him. He's a real boy! Not no more he ain't_._ I'd cut the strings that held him down but that's what outsiders considered 'murder'. Kinda funny to imagine a lifeless hand flopping around and then remembering that it was once able to hold onto you with its own strength. Kinda funny? More like—not really.

Wait, hold the walkie-talkie, instant messaging, picture-taking phone. I knew what was going on. Distraction was stabbing my brain cells one by one, diluting my thoughts and keeping me in a place far, far from reality. Confound it. I say 'up yours' with gusto to that habit of self-distraction. I was tired of finding myself thinking about… hmmm, golden unicorns…

Dork, cough.

Who said that?!

So! Back to the question posed a zillion hours ago: 'Know why it's raining?'

Sora's long awaited response: "To become paradise, it needs to rain. That's how things grow and stay alive."

Huh? That was strangely normal-ish. Not by any means in Sora Standard, but normal enough for Human Standard. Ok, maybe semi-normal on the Sora scale… because hearing those words from him caused a 'pang of recollection' in the back of my mind. Like one o' dem phantom pains you get when a forgotten dream begs to be remembered. It's annoying as shit.

"Yeah, it needs to rain. And then the flood drowns us all." I was sure I'd used that retort before, too. Why'd it feel like we were having a recycled conversation? Halt! Deal with the déjà vu thang _later_. Okay, whatever I say.  
  
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," Sora bantered on, trying to maintain his point, "good things can come from the bad."  
  
Hack, gag. Excuse me, I choked on a little bit of _irony_. Sora talking about dying, go figure. Yep, that spun a good yarn all right. And thanks for the pep talk, sorry if I laugh, because, ha ha ha, what did any of this have to do with _anything_?! Where was this going…

Schnap. It coulda been like the turtleneck thing, prophesied doom to be decoded from a string of stupid words. I hate those! Quick, what could 'good things can come from the bad' have meant?

Sora answered that before I asked, "If we make it through this storm, it must really mean we can't be torn apart. Ever."

Really now. Oh.

Ohh, that's what it'd been all about. This vampire thing was a bad thing, right? When we fixed it up, this quote 'storm' would have a happy ending, a perfect paradise of friendship! Egad, how wonderfully fruit loopy. If I disregarded the '_if_ we make it through' part, it sounded promising. Finally, our ancestors had smiled upon us; we had a shitload of good fortune just waiting! There really _was_ a pot o' golden Skittles at the end of the goddamn rain-friggin-bow!! Every cloud had a silver lining because, get it, it was raining!

And, shucks, was it hot in there or was it just me? Felt like I got a slap in the face, sans the slap, patches of heat left on my cheek(s). Was that what it felt like to have someone confess something fruit loopy to you? If that was the reason why he looked away when I told him that 'you're all I have left' stuff earlier, I didn't blame him anymore. My brain, it boggles like a frog in a blender.

"Well, umm. I'ma… I'm gonna go over—there_,_" I mumbled, not really knowing where I was going. All I knew was I was going. Over—there.

"Don't go outside."

You talkin' to me? You talkin' to _me_?! I don't see anyon—oh, yeah he was talking to me. I miraculously found myself right in of the sliding glass door, heading to that backyard beach thing where Sora and I used to stare at the night sky and wonder about whatever made us wonder. Guess smart guy Auto Pilot thought it was a good time to take me to my thinking spot to ponder our victories and tribulations.

Wait a sec…

What's worse than 'oops, where the hell am I'? Heeling like a dog. I just did when he told me to stop. Har ha, look who was whipped harder than whipped cream. He owned me now or what?

"And why can't I go outside?" Psh, I'd prefer my gonads _out_ of Ms. Man's lock box, thanks.

"This storm, it isn't right."

SEE? I knew it all along. You can't pull the wool over my eyes twice, in the same week. I knew there was something funky going on with this storm, he wouldn't talk about such trivial things just to cheer me up. This storm wasn't _'right'_? I took it as an omen of doom. Not just doom, no, but custom-made doom. It'd go with the theme of things not making sense. So, there was a reason to be fearful for our hides after all. Pardon me, I must attend to vomiting in terror.

"How's this storm 'not right'?"

I predicted he'd say, 'I just feel it,' adding that there weren't words to describe how he knew he felt it. Then he'd strain to coerce that idea into my unbelieving mind.

How sweet it was yet wasn't to be right. What now, was there something outside natural occurrences _causing_ it to rain? Encountering evil rainmen didn't sound appealing. Great, now I was gonna die. Worse, I was _expecting_ to die. Damn you, rain, not even touching us but making us prisoner of a nightmare and other assorted stuff!  
  
"What about the other people out there? Are they in trouble?"  
  
I predicted he'd say, 'I dunno' and leave it at that.

Bull's eye again (witness the accursed genius bestowed upon me). Of course no one else had to worry, we were the only freaks around. Right? I hoped so. Hoped beyond hope. Yes, I was leaving a message on kami-sama's answering machine. Pick up, I know you're there, stop screening your calls! Make it stop raining and save the people, please! Maybe save us a little, too!

No? I'll show _you_…!!

I fogged up a patch of glass door with my breath and drew a frown-y face. In case you're dense, that was supposed to express my internal mental fracas. But who cared. After getting a whiff of my kim-chee-instant-ramen-tastic breath (was that really the reason?), I made way to the fridge to fix that.

'Shall we dance, Asahi, my Beer Maiden?' my eyes seemed to ask.

'Forevermore,' its sleekly silver tab seemed to reply. How eloquent. Yoink!

Upon turning back around I saw that, oh, my dear Jabberwocky, indeed my fading frown-y face was under Sora's scrutiny. How pathetic was that thing? Was it in conjunction with how pathetic _I_ was?

"I was going for the symbolic feeling, " I imitated a flitty Mr. Fancy Breeches. Then that annoyed me so I stopped, "We're not exactly en route to Candyland," dramatic pause, "Or are we? Wherever I go, there I am but I didn't ask you yet. Maybe you're happy where we are. Maybe Kairi's happy," (bonus: using her name), "Why wouldn't she be, I'm cleaning her mess," oops, said the quiet part out loud, "Not that you're the mess. I mean… Shut up."

Maybe what we had right then was all we needed. There was perfect host/parasite action going on. It could go on until I died and since he was so hopelessly psychologically/physically devoted/dependant on me, he'd honorably starve himself after I was gone. That way, no matter dead or alive, we'd always end up in the same place. Yeah, right, that went under the 'Badly Deluded Ideas' list right after article 42-b: Kairi paying someone to make Sora a leech-of-life thing. Score, bonehead.  
  
"And if it's as you said, the bad things make us and don't break us. We'll be inseparable after this '_naughty_' storm is gone. Wonder which'll happen first, me falling through some rusty chainsaws or you getting your arm gnawed through by a rabid panda. Better flip a coin."

Like a hot knife through the butter of your soul, my tame sarcasm. That's right, I said 'butter of your soul'!

"Just messin wit'cha, wipe that face of your face. Expression. Wipe that _expression_ off your face."

So Sora gave me a _different_ look that said how weird I was. The mouth part of his face then said, "Didn't mean to make you mad."

"I was kidding."

"No use lying."

In the name of Great Flapjacks, listen Short Stack, "Whatever psychic thing telling you that I feel mad, it's not wrong. But feeling something for a little bit doesn't mean I do all the time, or wanna at all. I'm not mad."

I told him that with a scowl scrawled on my face. I was baffled, perplexed, wrathful, yes, but happily so. What I said was probably true, I was probably happy, I dunno, I was a stranger to me, weep, gurgle, stab.

Then settled upon our shoulders a silence much like the kind we've been burdened by before. Just like crystal meth, awkward silence is the gift that keeps on giving. But the rain, the rain, the rain, it was non-silent. It was like the rain was trying to tell me something…nothing. Rain can't talk, idiot. At least not yet. Nevertheless, it'd earned my undying hatred, just as the sunrise had. Stupid sunrise, taking away my night sky. If ever I said I hated the night sky because of anything, I lied.

"Well, I dunno what now. Since this storm 'isn't right', guess we should revel in our current state of un-decapitation," harped the wizened Riku, the BeastMaster of Harp (whatever that is).

I raised the can to my lips and ended up sucking empty air. Alas, it only made sense such nonessential little solaces didn't last long. Dance over, Beer Maiden, and all that's left is your silvery dress. Holy mackerel, what in the name of Buddha's bicycle was I talking about? A drink is not a person, nor can it take the place of one, nor is the empty can 'her' empty 'dress'.

'See how lonely you are, seeing how empty I am, Fool,' Beer Can Lady seemed to say with biznatch-osity turned on full blast.

'Shove it with coconuts,' I said. Out loud. "Not you, Sora. What? _Yes,_ I was talking to the can, _mother_."

==========

Stress? Lack of rest? Could be. A vein near my temple began to flutter delicately as a jackhammer does through asphalt. It was like Christmas and my birthday smushed into one and stewing in my skull-kettle. Great feeling. Yup.

Sure, we were stuck inside because the storm. Nay, the trepidation ended not there. I still had to worry about the next day, not only about the bills and food and gasoline, but I wanted to see the seven-colored arc of sunlight refracting in droplets of water, the rain_bow,_ but with all the bad things like the Notorious D.O.C Fink-en-fly out there committing dastardly deeds and having an unclosed deal with Banshee Inc. and why did Banshee want me to know that this was her fault what the frick was I gonna do to make sure we saw paradise in the end?! If there was no tomorrow, on a scale of 'yes' to 'no', how screwed were we?

Very much yet not really, a paradox for the ages.

Shut up, Brain, don't make me stab you with a Q-tip. Periods of _shutting up_ are good.

Time may've been short, and I mighta been a few leaves short of locoweed, but fears weren't gonna clog things up.

Scale:

[Uber Acceptable] ------------------------[ Acceptable]----------------clogging----- [Unacceptable]

Clogging = unacceptable.

Things being helter-skelter didn't mean I couldn't, _we_ couldn't…

Have fun! Nary a microsecond of mindless amusement had taken place that whole day. I was gonna work this 'free' evening like a sweatshop going out of business.

See, there's fun to be derived from a certain activity. It lets you see a side of people you can't ask to see, but boy do you bask in its glow when it ventures into the light. For later blackmail purposes. First timers can get pretty nervous, especially if they had to go out amongst strangers and pay to get about it. Oh well. _I_ had all that _we_ needed right at home. Mmmyes.

"The living room, c'mon," I said. And he followed me (who owned whom now?). I kept a face straighter than a ruler, "Karaoke."

"No."

What, was he the Jolly Police, stealing my jollies?

"That wasn't a request. What time is it?"

"Time?" Sora stirred to point at my watch again. But!

"Wrong. It's Karaoke time. I bought a karaoke machine so I could sing. And singing is…? Rhymes with 'fun'. "

"Fun."

"You're right, so you go first."

"I don't know the words."

Exasperating little…

"The words show up on the screen."

"I know, but—"

"Damn it, this is the only fun that doesn't require opening windows to let noxious fumes out. We're gonna have 'fun' because aren't you tired of everyone being sad, and talking about darkness and lost memory? I'ma see you laugh because I wanna see it," no Sora, you may not speak, shut your mouth, dingus, "What's hard to understand about it, I can spell it out you need it!" Ahem. So then, "I'll sing first, show you how it's done." Always the astute role model, I know, I know.

Sadly, what I _really _knew was the track numbers like the back of my hand. Maybe Sora could choose what he wanted by the name of the song or something, no way there was gonna be a 'duet'. I threw the song list folder thing at him and his eyes practically crossed as he _watched_ it peg him between the eyes. Target! He glared at me something fierce and I just smirked back. Bad idea? I thought it was rather clever.

Everything set up? Ok. 1 2 3 4. Sound effect: croaking frogs. That's pretty much how I sounded.

"See? Easy. Your turn."

Yes, Sora wasn't good. He's got no hidden spring of ambrosia in his vocal chords. It was more like silk, because silk's something that comes out of a worm's back end. Kidding. But it wasn't a contest, he was supposed to be having fun. Laugh, smile and be merry, damn you! Singing monotone defeats the purpose.

My turn again, I'd show him. But I ended up sounding like croaking frogs again, plus cat yowling. At least I heard him snicker when my voice cracked. Laugh at my inefficiency, why doesn't everyone.

Sora's turn again. What, was he _laughing_ when he saw (heard) how (utterly) hopeless it was for him to try to stay on beat? See, karaoke is fun. People smiling and laughing carefree-like makes other people wanna smile and laugh. Anyone that says otherwise is as full of shit as a backed up elephant's colon.  
  
My turn again. Hilarity and hijinx ensued.  
  
"This is the last one, then I quit," Sora proclaimed, as if he had a say in the matter.

'Quit' karaoke? He didn't quit, he was fired. And if he got fired, I quit. I know for a fact solo karaoke is just sad. Lookit me for instance, knowing the whole track list.

Wouldn't you know it, Sora's next song was a syrupy, 'just broke up, gonna rage like the dragon I am', song with a slow beat to it. Better him than me. After four minutes, Sora's song did it's dramatic, weepy decrescendo. Boo freaking hoo. The only way I knew the song was over was when I saw his mouth stop moving. Funny, I hadn't heard a word of that song—my eyes had been glued to watching his mouth. Something weird was going on, where were those pointy teeth things of his (was that really reason I was watching)? Yarg, my eyes, they burn, the goggles do nothing!  
  
So, all in all, Adventure in Karaokeland killed about ½ an hour and ended bitter-sweetly bitterly. Such unessential little solaces never last long. Downers-'R'- Us, I knew that the moment he cracked a smile. It'd hafta end, as all things do. Getting Sora's 'groove' back and keeping it back wasn't easy. How could it be? Time to grow up and move on.

I went to put the mic and other random things away (the bum just watched me) and I felt a heaviness in my chest. As in literal heaviness, as in the air I was breathing was heavy. And replete with the smell of dust even with the filter whatnots going on in the house's vent-y regions. Highly unusual that a heavy stillness should settle and that it should smell like it'd rained in the house. There were holes in the roof maybe…?

"Hey."

"What?"

Naw, Sora wouldn't know anything about it if I asked him. "You gonna help me or not? Mooch, forget it."

I just never noticed the smell every other time that it rained. The house was old, after all, I'd grown up in it and my parents gave it to me when they 'moved on up' to a better place, leaving this beachside property for the 'convenient' city. Paying a dog walker was 'convenience'?

I began to feel oh-so-sure of my sound logic, and of myself. Then in the next moment, if I coughed, I coulda vomited out my heart. It was all up in my throat. Girlish spewing of internal organs? Well, yeah. A rush of wet coldness ran across the back of my neck. I looked up in case it'd been a leak in the roof above me. Or something. No such luck. Now, no matter the circumstances, that just ain't right. I'd seen this countless times in movies, the unexplainable wash of cold streaking across the skin, making the body one giant goose bump ('goose _pimple_' sounds nasty because, ew, goose pus). This was a surefire sign of bad luck by horror-movie standards.

Great, now I really _was_ expecting to die. House smelling weird? Bad rain? Cold sweats like secreting avalanches through my pores? Me: great, but with the R stretched out. More like "grrrreat." I was freakin' out, man! All of it, solid proof Sora was bad juju vibes for my good mojo-ic karma. But for crying the hell out loud, I wanted him around. Call me softie, call me a sucka, but remember my real name is Riku.

Despite the flow of those purposeless thoughts, the perfect thing still managed to happen. Everything mercifully stopped. Merciful like a nurse with morphine, merciful like a man with a gun and I was a horse with a shattered leg. Time stood still as a picture, only more lifelike and 3D. And warmer and heavier. I think I forgot about heavy air and rain and the cold thing and Kairi and…

"I'm glad you want me happy," I felt two_ things_ wrap around me from behind, "and that you want me around."

Ey, not so easy. People touching me at all without prior warning? Not normal. I made it habit to wear ammonia scented cologne to keep people away. Of course I made that up but still. Sora, a.k.a. Blunty McBlunt, was letting off some ooga-booga vibes.

"Of course I do. I want you around for—for as long as… yeah, I want you around."

After several more endless minutes, and before the sissified twerp known as me completely liquefied at this contact, I had to wonder. How'd he get so close, didn't I piss him off at all, me being a jerk (and at least reeking of my last meal)? Did he put dust into the vents when I wasn't looking? Did he make that cold thing I'd felt on the back of my neck? More importantly…

"What're you doing, what the hell's going on? And are you—are you _crying_? Don't make me go back there!"

"I'm not crying. "  
  
Pft. So, your face finally sprung a leak, has it, Popinjay?

"So it's like rain on a statue. Unmoving face as the water drips down." Yes, I said it. Hope he remembered that, he'd told me the something like that yesterday when the sight of him elicited tears from my face. How's irony taste, like a clown, funny and childhood scarring-ly scary?!

I peeled his arms off of me and turned to face him. He probably thought he was buttering me up into bite-size pieces, just like when he let me see all my good dreams before absorbing them or having that hot breathing all over my neck when he wanted to steal my breath. Those hurt so good, I always enjoyed getting a taste if my own mortality. Not. Weeping and touching me equated to a big hurt on the way.

"It's a feeding thing, isn't it?" Gleaming images of teeth plus gouging fingernails came to mind. Mingled blood raining daintily upon his fingertips. Don't tell me he wanted to reduce me to a smear of bodily residue on the ceiling—or that he had anymore mind tricks up his sleeve.

"I like the things you can make me forget, and what you make me remember…" he said, disregarding that feeding thing I mentioned. He just kept looking at me. Not wandering to the rain outside, not to the right or left of me but right at me with his man-pretty eyes. Better get a Real Life TiVo so I could record him being man-pretty.

Wait, this hadda be a trick. Drawn into the mysterious pull, the same thing a penguin being sucked into a whirlpool must feel. Trying to hypnotize me with his tear-shined blue things!! 'Life is more than blood' isn't so hard to deal with when you're a mind-bent tool! I needed that as much as I needed a smarmy VD, which is not at all.

Oh get off it. I wasn't 'hypnotized'. How lame was that. I was just a willing tool. He almost definitely owned me, how sad for me, so I'd better say good bye to my soul or something. Thrills! Spills! Chills! Seriously. Soul sucker. If only I had a soul to give, mumble grumble, blarg. Riiiight.  
  
"When were smiling I realized—the things I went through, you were always there. A light that never went out, you never stopped calling for me. I broke out and tore faces so I could find you, Riku. I can remember some of these things. Only some…"

Umm… so, trying to make me feel bad…? My wrenching guts and his insipid face sent me mixed signals. Playing w/ heartstrings like it's cat's cradle is a bad thing.

The rain fell harder, but not loud enough to mute his words. Too bad because when he next asked me, 'c_an you remember making someone happy,_' was it supposed to be pouring salt on the wound or not? Because it was. Not sprinkling, but _pouring_ salt. I felt the difference. 'Saltier than a sea of tears' someone might say, before my knuckles say 'Hello' to their nose.

"You don't know how much you can make someone else do—just for your sake. You wanted me happy so you could be too, but unless you are…"

Gulp. I let out a small laugh, feeling relieved and definitely uneasy. This moment was horribly radtastic. Cue my blood-engorged facial capillaries, red and attractive as… an apple? No. A divine rose? No, more refined than that. Red like a baboon's ass. Still, even with what he just said, more like what he didn't, it didn't filter through the buzzing in my ears. I felt like a jerkoff for even thinking it, but did he mean what he was saying or was it more 'code' for something else?

'—unless you're [happy]', what could that have meant, if it meant anything besides what it was supposed to?

"… … …"

That was me. I said nothing. Remember well the sound of me saying that, for I'll never say it again out loud. There wasn't much I could think of to say, not enough words to thoroughly ask 'who, what, where' or 'why'. Not even enough brainpower to ponder 'who, what, where' or 'why'. A rainy sunset turning into a rainy night laced with lightning and all sorts of other danger can't be wholly translated to words—the same thing goes for having someone hold on to you during those times and say that you matter. Same thing goes for having a warmth in the chest gently fricasseeing my heart-thing. Same thing goes for feeding the guilty suspicious I had lurking about.

I had absolutely no 'big picture' of what the hell was going on, or any 'big' or 'picture' at all for that matter. What about _Sora's_ heart? He shouldn't have been acting like this unless… And the thing out there behind the walls of rain. And that cold thing I'd felt on my neck, that stupid déjà vu thing from earlier. What was I gonna do, so many things left hanging. But I guess I hadda belly flop into the quicksand at _some_ time. Get the acutely refreshing shock from the fact that it was inevitable I wouldn't find the answers to all my questions. Or even find questions to fit the answers I already had.

Wherever things were going, there they went—but these cotton-candied words weren't helping. Cavities, they were, in the dentures of my soul. I said 'dentures of my soul'! All this sissy-wis-boo-boo stuff was uncalled for.

"Riku?"

And his velvety timbre wasn't helping either. Damnation.

==========

AN: Hey peeps ( - - cool and up-to-date slang, Jigga), thanks for sticking around. I'd melt into a puddle of goo but I can't since I have a backbone. Chordate, as they say in Anthro. Hey, I loved that class. The name _Homo erectus_ isn't funny, but _Ardipithecus ramidus _is, tee hee. Was I the only one that laughed when Prof. said '_Robust Australopithecine_ had sagittal crests and large teeth for heavy mastication'? Anyway, thanks for reading so far = )


	11. Chapter 11

AN: *Knock knock*  
Who's there?  
Orange.  
Orange Who?  
Orange you glad I went on Hiatus?

For a long story short, see end of chapter. If you please.

* * *

-11-

Indeed, some things in life smolder. A feverish malaise ingesting you inside out until a feeling "beyond words" causes it to erupt into an inferno. In that light, blinded yet enlightened by its pure rawness, the hungers that've been writhing within finally have an identity. A name, a face. You realize that, without knowing it, you've let things become dear to you. Its absence was that abstract desire that'd settled over your entire being. That dull ache, that smoldering of a fire not yet born and not yet dead…

_"Riku?"_

Sora rubbed an undisciplined and primal _something_ in me that'd yearned for that complex touch of heat. To add to everything else already sufficiently and efficiently meeting the Double-U Tee Eff quota, now a thick layer of an angst-like substance wanted so badly to put me in a bad mood.

_"Hey."_

I had to pull myself together.

"Riku! You aren't listening."

"Uh huh. That's really interesting, Sora." (Like I said. Claiming that something's interesting usually keeps you out of trouble.)

"Then what should we do?"

_Usually _keeps you out of trouble.

"Um_…_ I think… that you should repeat everything you just said." He looked at me kinda disappointed, but oh well. "So sue me."

His fleshy lips parted, undoubtedly to crack wise, but his intended words did not come to pass. Pass they did not. Like a jagged kidney stone. Ew.

A dazzling radiance overtook our eyes. For lack of elegant prose, I found myself in a drawn out rendition of, "Woahh…" One, two, skip a few, ten seconds later thunder rattled through the house, transcending my flesh and making my bones quiver in their sockets. A car alarm went off somewhere. Does it make me a bad person to feel good that we weren't the only ones screwed? Because so were the neighbors, and pretty much the rest of this island (sorry, guys!).

Wind pressed against the door, making it sound as if someone was on the outside pushing against it, trying to get in… so don't think it strange that I casually moseyed down towards the front door, you know, just to make sure it was _still _locked. Standard procedure, ladies and gentlemen, no need for alarm. It was shut, sealed, and impervious. Fantastic. This storm was charmingly windy like the south-end of my bean-loving great uncle.

Not one moment of peace had passed before, wouldn't you have guessed it, my skin began tingling. Not the fun 'tee-hee' kind. A very ticklish trickle of something oddly warm and slow wound its merry way down my left bicep. Had I been born under a different star, with a different soul and a different body, it would've been because a drop of (and for some reason _warm) _water had leaked through the roof and so happened to land on me. However, since I am helplessly myself, it began to hurt and sting.

Well, I had to _look_ at my arm to see what it was, and that's when I was introduced to three parallel welts swelling against the backdrop of my pasty skin. Each heartbeat fed the liquid ruby rivulets. Just can't keep my fluids in me, can I? Seeping into the atmosphere, my guts, my sanity, my everything. Damn it! What's wrong with me?

Obviously, not enough.

I kinda-asked/kinda-accused him, "You see this, right? Right?" But it wasn't a question in the traditional sense of a question. It was more like I was about to ride a donkey down a dusty road and bid goodbye to this sinkhole of an existence. Or whatever. I was sucking crazy through a straw by now because, look, I don't know what that's supposed to mean, alright? The dust-infused, shivering ice coldness inside the house plus the reawakening of my animalistic fear of blood set the perfect stage for hysterical panic.

Besides, my blood was usually smeared all over the inside of his mouth with his tongue swimming through it. This time it wasn't so charming. Can't have my blood and bleed it too.

"Yeah I see it, but I didn't do it," Sora said. The simple words of a simpleton.

In the spirit of the New Me, I gathered my wits before dropping bombs I'd regret. "Sora, I'm a forgiving person and will assume you didn't do this." I marched right up and grabbed his hand, "See? You have two too many fingers to have made three gashes. No… wait… you still could've done it. But I won't blame you, that's the point."

He rolled his eyes, like the schoolchild that he is, and took back his hand. "If you'd been _listening_…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Haven't you noticed the shadows?"

"Shadows? If _you_ haven't noticed, I don't know what you're talking about." I had a feeling this was another symptom of the quaint illness I call _Riku's Life_. Basically, _Riku's Life_is an incurable and humorless disease. Also, I happen to be the actual _Riku_. "It's the storm, isn't it? Shadows are running in between the rain drops and gashing every meaty bicep."

Another flare of lightning stunned our eyes. Thunder followed moments later. Coincidentally, so did the urge crawl into a deep, deeeep cave and hum loudly to myself to drown the outside craziness and pander to my inside craziness.

"Why don't you lick my arm so you can get it out of your system?" I offered crudely expecting (no, _pursuing_) a less than enthusiastic reply.

"The licking part or the blood part?" That frickin' guy. "Riku, I didn't see what happened to your arm but I didn't do it."

"Alright. I believe you," It's ok for me to roll my eyes, because I invented it, so I did it.

"Haven't you _felt _anything weird going on? Like you can't see what you feel is around you." The next statement caused the further loss of my alleged 'grip on reality'. "It's the darkness… this storm _is_ darkness."

"Um, duh, it's dark out there." Idiot.

"No! I mean darkness, as in… like there's so much _nothing_ that it turns into _something_."

"Ok, ok, whatever."

It was like having a Stupid Contest with a stupid friend but really _you're_ the stupid one for being the stupid friend's friend. Everything about it was ridiculous, yet it was still my fault just for existing in my own circumstance.

"It's not like us. It exists differently. It's a different—" he weighed his options before settling with, "—_dimension_. Darkness is causing the shadows to move."

So if this situation was like the Quantum Mechanics I didn't study, such as light being both a wave and a particle at the same time, then, uhh… ok, then. What size boulder would have otherwise needed to fall on my head for me to believe that darkness isn't just darkness anymore? It's sentient now and causing shadows to injure me. Did you just hear what I just said? Oh shit!

"So I guess locking the doors isn't enough to keep darkness and shadows out," I reasoned. Sora shook his head, meaning 'yes', though usually a shake of the head indicates 'no.' Life is full of funny things like that, ain't it? "Then what the hell are we doing standing here if our own shadows can turn against us?"

"There's nothing we can really to do. The brighter the light the darker the shadows become."

There was a fleeting pause before he continued in a slightly vanquished tone, "It's like whole world's squeezing us in. It's claustrophobic being surrounded like this, like there's nowhere else to go but within."

"Somehow you half make sense half the time," (meaning that Sora is relevant only a quarter of the time.)

First we're stuck on this lousy planet, then on this island, then in our neighborhood, and now we're cornered inside this house. By shadows no less. Sometimes, nothing seems to be really real except your own thoughts.

I wondered what Sora was literally thinking during his senseless vampire phase. The rampaging and whatnot. Sora had not his memories until recently, so what scary place in his mind had he recoiled into for comfort? He must've gone insane. Which explains a lot.

"Whatever's after you was probably planning to go through me first, anyway," I said.

Yep. I accepted the fate destiny had intended since the day I was born (or conceived, depending on how much nasty you can handle): being stalked and eaten by a shadow monster of darkness was obviously the only way to go.

Through the window, I saw the clouds close over the pearl of a full moon. This incredulous night had two ways of ending. Hours upon hours of colorless night could remain as invisible shadow marauders slowly encroached upon us… or it all could end _right now_ like skydiving gone wild… I mean, 'gone wrong'. Oh well. At least my most precious malady kept me company.

"Actually, I need to tell you something." Sora said. "I needed it this way. I couldn't go though this with anyone else."

"Well," I faked a small cough to fake clear my fake throat. Wait, my throat is real. Anyway. "I wouldn't have believed anyone else if they'd told me any of the stuff you've told me."

I could tell that he'd been waiting to bring up the next thing he was going to say. Despite it all, the juice swapping and energy draining and half drunkenness and supernatural bullcrap between us, he still managed to be uneasy when he began to speak. "You know, Riku, I know why I'm here."

"God, Sora," I grumbled, ready for something irritating to aggravate my soft spot (the one in my heart, not my head, specifically).

"Heaven wouldn't take my soul. Science wouldn't let my body rest. I'm here on time that isn't my own."

…What?

He had to be kidding. God-freaking-damn it son of a bitch. How? How the hell did he find out? Shit. My brain signals scrambled and melted into a cacophony that I truly can't explain. Even though it wasn't my quote-unquote "job" to keep this truth from him, I would dare say I was disappointed. I didn't have enough control over anything to be able to tell him that he was a warm, responsive lump of biomass so tragically wrought with magic and his old soul. But what was I expecting? That my words would somehow cushion this sort of news? Right. My delusion of grandeur.

To keep things as uncomplicated as possible, lets just say that I fell to pieces on the inside. It was beyond anything that even my beloved sarcasm could cure.

I dumbly mumbled, "You mean…?"

"You illuminate my memories, Riku. I can't see myself without you. Something about being so close to you, and after singing karaoke… everything… came back… that's why I held on to you. How could I be happy as all those memories came back? The grayness sharpened into so many memories."

"Oh, Sora."

"I can't be happy unless you are. On my own I have nothing but with you… the bad memories aren't the only memories I have."

It was seeing things in this way, my friends, that finally shattered the deepest, most stubborn part of my resistance. I will tell you that it honestly broke my heart, or my heart became however more broke-d it could be by this point.

He moved in close, and an absolutely bewitching pale gleam caught the edges of his eyelashes, the curve of his mouth—it was the white glow of him healing my arm. Somehow I had forgotten about that mysterious pain. Somehow my wits calmed down. Whiter and whiter and then…

…the electricity went out.

Contrary to what you might've expected, I did not scream like little puss, even though the world _did_ became so unbelievably black… which might make me _want_ to scream like a little puss… which I did not.

Ok, maybe I did. A little. Great time for a power outage.

"Great, Sora, just great." I said with added bass to my voice, trying to reel back home any scrap of dignity floating out there. Hint: there was none.

My primitive eyeballs became bitter acquaintances with the foul night, and that's when I got a real kick. Two floating orbs refused to diffuse into the black background. They remained illuminated, soft and hazy like a lighted match held behind pieces of amber glass. They were just the right size and height above the ground to be _his_ eyes!

"You know if you put a candle in your mouth you'd pass for a decent Jack-o-Lantern."

"Shut up."

"You're right. More like a Sora-o-Lantern. Just saying. Never saw them before." I mean, maybe. Last night I slept away from him. Then again, that might explain how I could see his eyes so well that night in the moonlight. "They're, uh, nice. Real nice. Do you have night vision? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"None. You're sticking your tongue out at me," answered the Peanut Gallery.

"Yeth! Thuctheth!" ("_Yes! Success!_") As they say in Blitzball, _GOAL_!

It occurred to me that I should light some candles. Then again, doesn't the thought of a vampire by candlelight freak you out a little? A little _a lot_?

"How about you help me find my flashlight? It doubles as a weapon. Sounds good right about now."

His Cheshire Eyes floated away. My tumbly was rumbly with ill-timed, immature tittering. Since Sora didn't take very long to find my flashlight I could tell he had nosed through my stuff when I was gone. He knew where to look. Hope he didn't find the pink flamingo I keep under my bed.

I shoulda seen it coming, like a bite on the ass after pointing it at a tiger's face. "So, about that flamingo you keep under your bed…"

"It's not what you think."

"What could I _possibly_ think?"

* * *

A circle of light was fixed on the ceiling. I stood the flashlight on its flat end on the table in the living room. Batteries be damned, I wasn't gonna sit in the dark. You can't see shadows without a light for contrast, and I wanted to see those shadows if they tried sneaking up on me again, damn it.

But until then, why not share a story?

Once upon a time, something was very funny to me_._ I recall quite fondly two pink plastic flamingo lawn ornaments.

There used to be this old cranky hag across the street, Ms. Maleficent (or, "The Green Princess of Botox." She had so much work done her tired flesh was green from the inside out!). I snuck out at night to stick the flamingoes in the middle of her front yard so they'd face each other and their necks kinda formed a heart, because she was a crazy man-eater. The next morning she tore them out and threw them as far as she could. I must admit my genius peaked at age fifteen.

After she stamped back inside I ran out to collect the flamingoes. I kept putting them back on her yard every day for a week, and she just kept throwing 'em. Until she exploded one. Crazy lady.

I regaled this anecdote to Sora, to which he replied, "Wow. You're pretty dumb."

As if being dumb the _worst_ thing in the world I could be.

"You don't understand the pure evil radiating out of that lady. Her eyes were wild." But since I had already merited the title of Dumb, now Sora would never hear the part where I prank called her under the guise of my Chinese persona, _Long Wang._ Ha!

"While we're at it, is there anything _else_ I shall explain about the artifacts you've unearthed from the pits of my room?"

All too enthusiastically he began listing them off, "Purple pig pillow? Headless doll? Broken music box?"

"A gift, a Marie Antoinette action figure with removable head, and a broken music box."

"Fascinating," Sora crooned.

"Then ask me about something _you_ care about, your Majesty."

"You."

"Uh huh, right."

Turning his eyes down, he said, "If you don't mind. Things are just…"

I couldn't help but to look at his lips as he spoke, knowing that they were too beautiful to have gone through so much. I didn't know how the fangs even worked, but they've been on my skin, they've been wet with my blood. I wanted to erase it all, every last bit… he'd told me his story but, please… I wanted to write a new chapter upon that perfectly poignant smile, a new story… with his ink and my pen on this thin sheet of time…

"I get it. You need some time."

The night was torn asunder like the Holy Tabernacle with another stab of lightning. Hardly any time had passed before everything shook with thunder. The palm leaves twisted their spines, shivering loudly in the wind. It was the epitome of that "trapped" feeling.

It must've been the pressure of thinking that my world was going to end. Seriously, do you know what it's like to live a countdown? A crappy countdown where you don't even know when it began and all you know is that at any moment it could be zero? Pressure… pressure.

I'm not going to lie. I kissed him. It was like hitting the ground after falling from some place really high up: it was gonna happen eventually. Besides, it wasn't like I was vowing to marry him. It just needed to be done. I couldn't leave this world without knowing how it felt like.

My brain descended from a plateau of chemical ecstasy when I backed away. Even his silly glowing eyes seemed sacred. The stale coppery taste from his tongue kept my exhilaration planted firmly in our reality; even if he cared for me back, it was all going to end soon. I could _taste_ the freaking End. Does not taste like chicken.

"Riku," he said quite clearly, "are you crazy?"

"Yes. Yes I am. I'm here, ain't I? You've been sucking the life out of me and I _want_ you to stay."

Sweet Hades below, or above, who cares. He didn't even have to like me back. He didn't need to do anything, in fact, as long as I could keep meddling in his life.

"Look, I know that was pretty dumb considering what you're dealing with already. Before you say or do anything, just know that my heart was warped before you came along and broke it. I guess that was good, so it can heal the right way this time. They do that with crooked bones, y'know. Re-break them and stuff so they'll grow back… uh… straight."

He gave me that little warm smirk I'd been hoping for, "Straight, huh?"

"Perfectly."

When it comes to the sweet Sundae of Love, must one explain why he prefers the banana over the cherry? Moreover, shall I explain to the banana why he is preferred? Moreover-over, to Dracu-nana Fang-Galore, shall I spare his peelings? Haw-haw.

"Riku, our hearts have been one long before our bodies met up again. You had a good time thinking you were smarter than me, didn't you?"

"It's always a good time with you around."

Ok, so I'd just made up all that noise about him not needing to like me back, blah blah blah. Of course that was all just in case he hated me. But he didn't hate me. Heh. Oh, god. Seriously.

"I'll give you everything, Sora."

I couldn't have guessed how soon.

* * *

AN: So here's the Scoop! Lots of stuff happened. That's news, right? Details? Simply ask! I have a very fond attachment to this story so I must finish this before I die.


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